


Ray of Sunshine

by unicornwarrior



Category: Divergent - All Media Types, Divergent Series - Veronica Roth
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Crime Fighting, F/M, Hate to Love, Romance
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-04-01
Updated: 2019-12-17
Packaged: 2019-12-30 12:01:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 14
Words: 38,869
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18314888
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/unicornwarrior/pseuds/unicornwarrior
Summary: Rae Harper is spunky, loud and decidedly does not care what anyone thinks. Especially not Eric Coulter. She spends her days drinking boatloads of whiskey with Four and Zeke, reading pre-war detective novels, getting into a bunch of fights and goofing off with Four in the Control Room. Most importantly, though, she spends her days as far away as possible from Eric Coulter.All in all, she’s living the dream.Until she punches the one guy she shouldn’t have punched and finds herself in the middle of what might be the biggest crime ring inside the faction system since it was established. And of course, Eric Coulter is somehow involved.But she’ll always be ray of sunshine no matter what, at least that’s what she tells herself.





	1. Straight Against the Wall

**Author's Note:**

> Hey everyone! 
> 
> This fic is set in an alternate universe where Divergents are widely accepted (I didn't want to have to write a similar story to the books) and the faction system is a whole lot less rigid. I really hope Eric doesn't get too ooc at times, but I kind of had to make him less of a terrible human being because this is supposed to be more of a lighthearted fic. So it kinda figures that there's a lot of canon divergence (ha, no pun intended). I hope you enjoy the story anyway! 
> 
> Have a great day and thank you so much for reading! Leave me a comment, I'm open to any type of criticism :) 
> 
> M

“You know, at some point,” I said, “I’m gonna write down all the names of these people and give them to Max. Just to get everyone’s sorry ass in trouble.” 

Four snorted into his steaming cup of coffee. “You’re hilarious. Do you really think that Max would care?” He gave me one of his sideways glances, a thick, dark eyebrow raised. His eyebrows looked a little like caterpillars and I sometimes wondered what girls saw in him. I mean sure, the guy was toned like a fucking _statue_ and had these dreamy dark blue pondering eyes, but he always looked like he’d just bitten into a sour apple and was making you responsible for his affliction because you hadn’t stopped him. “I mean, the guy’s a leader. I think he’s got better things to do than deal with stuff like this.” 

I shrugged. The only times I ever saw Max was when he decided to chew me out for something or when he was drinking with his fellow Dauntless leaders. He didn’t really seem like he was completely swamped all the time. Maybe he pawed off most of his workload to the younger leaders? “Okay, number seventeen for today’s contest. Pinky and the Brain over there with the condom strip falling out of his back pocket. Rookie move, by the way. I bet you twenty points that he’ll get slapped in five, four, three, two-“ 

On the screen, the blond girl’s hand shot up and backhanded the guy with surprising force for someone her size. Even without hearing the crack of her palm smacking against his skin, I knew that it must’ve been painful. All because he came prepared, like a good boy scout. Poor Pinky. 

“Pay up, Five,” I said, holding out my hand. 

“I don’t think so. Never agreed to your terms. Also, as I said last week, I am never betting you ever again. On anything.” As if on an afterthought, he added, “And the name’s Four.” 

“Ah, you know what, you party pooper-“ 

I was interrupted when the door to the surveillance room was yanked open and Zeke stuck his head in. His hair was getting longer and now almost covered his eyes, which made him always rear his head like a seal when he was trying to see you – it was absolutely hilarious. “Hey, guys. Anything interesting happening today?” he asked. 

“Ever heard about knocking, you oaf?” I barked at him. “For all you know, I could’ve been sitting on Fourteen’s face right now.” 

There was a sharp intake of breath next to me, making it known that my comment hadn’t missed its target. If there was one thing that I loved doing, it was teasing the hell out of Four’s tendency to get really, really uptight and weird when someone was kissing, dry humping, or, frankly, even as much as talking about sex. That was part of the reason why I enjoyed our little game of ‘Who Gets to Third Base?’ so much. That and because it passed the time in the Control Room. You know, considering that this was such a highly ranked position, it sure was fucking _boring_ sometimes. 

“Yeah, sure,” said Zeke. He was almost laughing his ass off, the buffoon. I made a mental note to punch him – later, because he was pretty far away from where I was sitting, my feet up on the panels and everything, and I didn’t really want to get up right now. 

God, working in this place was making me so lazy. If not for my three-hour workouts every morning, I’d probably never move. 

“Can I hang with you guys for a while? I just got off my shift and I don’t want to go back home, Shauna’s pretty mad at me,” said Zeke. Not waiting for an answer, he pulled up a chair and sat his ass down right next to Four, giving us a bright grin. “So, anything interesting in here?” 

“You know,” I reply, “If the Frown Princess finds out that you’re in here, he’s gonna tear me a new one.” 

“Why you?” 

“Because he’s terrified of Four and knows he can’t take you on when you’re both here, so he’ll go for me. I already got a beating from the guy during initiation, it wasn’t sexy.” I shuddered. It really hadn’t been, if I remembered it even four years after my initiation. I didn’t even know what I’d done, I just had this this image imprinted in my mind – of his hand soaring through the air and knocking me out clean. With a single punch. 

The man in question, by the way, was Eric Coulter. He was a Dauntless leader with the worst possible attitude and a build like a fucking _machine_ , broad-shouldered and packed with layers and layers of muscle. He had a habit of barging in on Four and me a few times during the week, barking at me to do my work instead of sitting there and goofing off with my best friend. He did that mostly because he was waiting desperately for Four to fuck something up so that he could justify degrading or firing the guy.

On good days, their rivalry was amusing – like a dog in a hat chasing its tail or something. On bad days, though, it was downright terrifying to see Coulter when he got that evil glint in the eye that said he’d found something to pin on Four. 

So, all in all, Eric Coulter was just a wonderful ray of sunshine. 

“Oh, Rae. You’re so dramatic. He only wants to intimidate you, he’ll never raise a hand against you.” 

I snorted but didn’t say anything else, my eyes roaming back to the screens we were supposed to be watching. 

“Wait, I said. “Shut up for a second, both of you.” 

I narrowed my eyes at the screen, looking very hard at Screen 22. The two tiny figures on there were obviously up to something, hunched over and seemingly whispering to each other. Sometimes, it was a bummer that these cameras didn’t have any microphones, they would’ve come in handy that day. 

“Four, 22.” My colleague’s eyes immediately darted to the right screen after, for a second, lingering on screen number four, where Pinky was now picking up his condom strip with a regretful expression on his face. I made a mental note to make fun of Four for that later. 

“What’s that look like to you?” 

“Zeke, you need to leave. Now,” Four almost growled and our friend wasted no time getting up and leaving. That was the condition of his coming here and sticking around for a while: When we actually had to work, he was to leave immediately. 

“That doesn’t look good to me. What are they doing? Exchanging something?” I asked, barely taking notice of the door slamming shut behind me. I couldn’t really contain the excitement in my voice: Something was finally happening. 

Four narrowed his eyes at the grainy image. “Yeah.” 

I picked up the comm device in front of me, selecting the correct unit of guards on the computer. 

“South wing, corridor 12B please come in. Harper in surveillance room to south wing, corridor 12B guards.” 

“Darren for south wing, corridor 12B. What’s up?” came the staticky voice from the comm device. Oh, what joy. Darren, you must know, was the biggest idiot among the guard commanders that you can imagine. He was inapt, stupid and, most importantly, thoroughly disobedient. Usually, he didn’t follow my orders, solely because I was the one giving them, and he hated me with a passion (maybe because I’d punched him in the face over some chocolate pudding once – I’d been pretty drunk, if that makes it any better). I really hoped he wouldn’t give me any trouble today, because this seemed really important. 

“There’s some type of deal going on between two people about fifty feet up corridor 12B. Send at least two people up there. I don’t feel good about this, something seems wrong to me. Make sure not to spook the two of them, though. Low-profile.” 

After almost four years of working in the control room, I had learnt to spot immediately what it looked like when something bad was about to happen. The worst part was that these two obviously knew there was a camera near them because they had a very particular way of ducking their heads and looking away from it, guarding their features. 

“Shit, shit, shit, they’re onto us, fuck!” I exclaimed. They two figures stopped speaking to each other and all but untangles themselves as they saw the approaching guards. Those idiots. If I told guards to send people somewhere when something bad was going on, that usually meant that they were to be a little subtler about it rather than just prancing in and letting the suspects see you walk towards them slowly. Fuck, sometimes I really hated these guards. Especially Darren’s division. For some reason, those guys were the biggest idiots out of all of them – which was saying a lot. Maybe Darren felt threatened by anyone more intelligent by him and therefore only chose people that wouldn’t pose a threat to _anyone_. 

“Darren, come in. They’re moving north, corridor 13A. Have someone cut them off.” 

Darren seemed a little offended at that. “No offence, Harper, but I don’t have that many people. These two are half of my shift.” 

“For fuck’s sake, Darren! I’m warning you, do not argue with me! Just dispatch people or go get someone else to do it!” 

My eyes flicked back up to the screens, watching them intently. The two figures moved from Screen 24 to Screen 25. They were whirlwinds moving through the corridors, yet still making sure that no one could see their faces. Their hoods were pulled down, covering their faces. All I could make out was dark pixels, shadows over faces. I couldn’t even tell whether they were male- or female-looking. 

“Harper, I only have two more people here. I’m not going to send them down there.” 

My mouth snapped shut, grinding my teeth together harshly as the two figures moved out of frame on Screen 25, straight through Junction 14 and down Corridor 19N. I waited intently for them to appear on Screen 26. Scanned the screen. Again and again. But they were gone. This was impossible! Where were they? They had to be there, there was no other way to go. 

After waiting a few more fruitless moments for the two people to reappear, I realised that they had disappeared. They’d found a way to cheat the system. 

“Fuck. Fuck. Fuck!” 

I got up from the desk, pushing back my chair. 

“Damn it,” Four swore, rubbing a hand over his face. 

“God, okay. Four, you stay here and keep an eye on the junction. I’ll be right back, I just want to have a quick talk with Darren.” 

“Are you sure that’s a good idea, Rae?” 

I shrugged my shoulders. “Someone needs to tell him that he can call back his useless ape guards.” 

Four nodded, keeping an eye on the screen in case the two figures would turn up again. 

God-fucking-dammit. I was going to murder Darren. While walking, I pulled a couple of bandages out of my jacket pocket – I knew it was ridiculous, but I’d bruised my knuckles punching through a wall the week before (please don’t ask) and I didn’t need them broken like the month before that (please don’t ask about that either). So, while I walked down the corridors up to the South wing, I wrapped my hands up in the bindings. After I’d done that, I tied my hair up into a bun, not wanting anyone to yank it. Red semi-permanent dye came off in my hands, staining my fingertips bloody. Grimly satisfied, I carried on. 

I was glad I’d worn my boots today. For some reason, I’d known that I was going to kick someone’s sorry ass (I’m saying that like I had another pair of shoes beside those boots). 

Darren was sitting in his little guard commander cubby, reading a newspaper and taking a sip of coffee from a chipped mug with an ugly floral motif. He was a stocky, thick little man with red acne marks all over his face. His hair hung about in unctuous strands, two tiny little piglike eyes peeking through, staring at a particularly captivating article titled ‘Amity to Grow Real Tomatoes Next Season’ (I was sure he wasn’t reading it, because he probably didn’t know how). Two guards were positioned not far away from him, obviously told to protect their commander – against what, I didn’t know. They looked at me a little oddly as I passed them. 

Not bothering to knock on the glass door to Darren’s cubby, I yanked it open and leaned into the doorway, effectively cutting off his only escape route. 

“Alright, Pimpleface,” I said, cracking my knuckles. He looked up from his newspaper quickly, his neck audibly protesting against the sudden movement. There was an apprehensive look on his face when he saw the bandages on my knuckles. “We can do this the hard way or the easy way.” 

“Harper, don’t be ridiculous, I was just-“ 

“You were just _what_ , Darren?” I snarled. It was in moments like these when I almost didn’t recognise myself because I sounded so harsh, but that was my Dauntless side. I guessed there was a little bit of an Amity in me too, because I sort of half-wished that in Dauntless, being violent wouldn’t be the only way to earn other people’s respect. But I’d learned the hard way that if you wanted to be someone in this faction, you had to take everything by force. So that’s what I did. 

“Refusing to follow a direct order from a higher-up? Letting two suspects get away? Trying everything in your might to piss me off?” I got quieter with every word, the last ones were almost whispered. I found that it was the best way to intimidate people. Getting louder was just so classless, you know? 

“Harper-“ 

“Shut _the fuck_ up.” 

In one fluid motion, I twisted his arm behind his back, knocking over the coffee cup and soiling his newspaper, and pressed his head against the glass wall parting us from the outside world. From my periphery, I saw the guards looking alarmed and taking a few steps towards me, putting their hands on their weapons. 

“If you take one step further, guys, I will personally see that you have to spend the rest of your lives on fence duty,” I snapped, giving Darren a gentle kick to the back to make my point clear. The two of them immediately stepped back. I smirked. “You don’t inspire a whole lot of loyalty, do you, bud?” I hissed into Darren’s ear viciously. 

For some reason, he managed to weasel out of my grasp and throw a badly aimed punch at my head, but I blocked it and retaliated quicker than his eyes could see. I might have been a little smaller than him, but I didn’t have his meaty, huge hands. With one last look at his ugly face I aimed a succession of quick hits to his temple and jaw. 

He shrieked and looked up to me with wet, small eyes. 

“Please, Harper.” 

“Jesus Christ,” I said, spitting out on the floor next to him. “You’re pathetic. I’ll let you get off with a warning this time, but if you ever, ever, ever dare  
to refuse an outright order from me again, you’ll wish you’d have gotten off this lightly. Are we clear?” 

Darren nodded zealously. 

“God gave you a voice for a reason, Darren.” Okay, maybe I was toying with him a little bit, but this was fun. I hadn’t had a good fight in a week and I’d been beginning to miss it, really. The wall I’d punched the week before hadn’t bothered to fight back actively, it had merely almost shattered every bone in my hand. Which wasn’t what I was looking for in a fight. 

“Yes, Harper. I won’t do it again.” 

“Good boy,” I said, patting the side of his head condescendingly. The bandages around my knuckles were pretty bloody, probably from his nose, out of which an almost black streak was trickling. 

Oops. 

With a wink to the camera above me and a vicious snarl toward the guards still looking at me like I was a bright purple kangaroo, I turned around and left the cubby, quickly making my way back to the surveillance room. 

Four was already sitting there, wrinkling his forehead as I plopped down next to him. 

“You know, I really don’t condone senseless violence,” he said. 

“Oh, live a little, Eighty-Three,” I replied. “You’re going to have to stop brooding at some point, you know that right?” 

“I’m just worried you’ll get in trouble for beating someone up for no apparent reason.” 

“He was questioning my authority.” I shrugged. Slowly, I unwrapped my hands and stretched them out. The bandages went straight into the trashcan next to me. There was nothing wrong with my knuckles and I was once again quite happy that I’d kept the bandages in my jacket. 

“You know, Twenty, you’re prettier when you smile.” 

That finally drew a laugh from Four. “You’re absolutely ridiculous, Rae.”


	2. Punishment Fit for the Crime

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello everyone! 
> 
> So, it is at this point that I have decided that we are moving into full AU territory; literally everyone here is so ooc. I'm sorry people. I'm the worst at keeping with the canon but it was just so tempting to make everyone a little nicer. read and comment anyways? :) 
> 
> thanks for reading, have a wonderful day!  
> M

“You got into another fight,” was the first thing that Zeke said to me when I plopped down next to him in the cafeteria. 

“It’s nice to see you too, Pedrad,” I replied. “I should really muzzle Four. He’s such a gossip girl.” 

“It wasn’t Four who told me. Everyone knows.” 

I rolled my eyes. “Yeah, it’s not like people fight a lot here.” I reached over the table to grab a plateful of hamburgers. As I was squirting a generous amount of ketchup on my mountain of fries, Zeke spoke again. 

“Yes, everyone fights, but usually not to punish their inferiors. You could’ve just had Darren degraded for insubordination.” 

“Now where’s the fun in that?” I laughed, stuffing a forkful of food into my mouth. 

Zeke, after a moment of hesitation, smiled back and we ate quietly for a few minutes. I asked him where Four was and he replied with a shrug, but I didn’t think much of it as our friend tended to delay meals until after his workout session; the lucky bastard had gotten a slot in the afternoon. It was nice; just sitting there and enjoying each other’s company, right up until - 

“ _Harper_!” 

Oh shit. I tried, very hard, not to let on how my stomach flipped upside down at the sound of that voice. It meant that I was seriously in Trouble. 

And Trouble did not disappoint, it turned out, as I soon spotted the owner of the angelic voice that had just bellowed my name – none other than Eric Coulter came stomping through the masses of eating and laughing Dauntless members (who had heard his scream and were now looking at me, waiting for the first blow to land). Coulter looked angry; then again, he always looked angry. With him, it was more a matter of _how angry_ he seemed. Four and I had devised an excellent scale for telling just how fucked you were: If he was simply red in the face and curling his fists, you were fine. He was just as pissed as always. If there was a vein protruding from the side of his neck, it meant that you’d better watch yourself. However, if he had one vein there and another one drawing a tree on his forehead, you should run. Far. 

Well, guess how many veins I counted? 

Before I could make a run for it, though, a meaty, calloused hand gripped me by the collar and hauled me out of my seat. God. Couldn’t Coulter’s temper tantrums wait until I had eaten? I was drained, man. Three hours of workout drills in the morning and then six hours of ass-sitting in the surveillance room. And then Darren’s stupid moment of childish rebellion. If not for the hand dragging me through the room, I would’ve sighed. 

Instead of sighing, however, I opted to make my situation much worse, because apparently, I had a deathwish. “Oh wow. Sunshine, if you wanted me to come with me all you needed to do was ask,” I said slyly. 

The look that Coulter gave me was almost worth the feeling of his hand tightening on my collar. Great. This wasn’t humiliating or anything. Being dragged through the room by this tank of a human being was actually something I’d always wanted to do. One more thing to cross off my bucket list. For fuck’s sake, was this necessary? He could’ve just sent for me or something, it’s not like I wouldn’t have come. I was terrified of that man. 

I tried to retain even a pathetic little part of my dignity, but it was hard to do when I was being thrown around like a rag doll. This was giving me uncomfortable flashbacks to my initiation. 

“You know, usually they buy me dinner first, but I guess you’re not into that sort of thing – ” 

“Harper, if you don’t shut up, I will make you.” 

This almost rendered me silent. _Almost_ being the key word here. “Oh wow, that sounds sexy. Are you gonna tie me to your bed, too? You look like that would be your schtick. You know, the dominating thing. Are you gonna whip-“ 

My words got stuck in my throat when the hand that wasn’t gripping my collar wrapped around the back of my neck, drawing me into an upright position and the one on my collar went around my throat. His hands were literally large enough for him to choke me with one of them – what joy. “ _Harper, this is your last warning_.” 

I shut my mouth, but only because he was squeezing the air out of my windpipe.

Grimly satisfied, Coulter let go and kept dragging me on to the leader offices. He was probably taking me to Max, seeing as he was responsible for disciplinary action among members and I was almost positive that this had something to do with Darren running to the leaders like he was a bullied child. Max, you must know, was the good cop to Coulter’s bad cop – I mean, it was more of a bad-and-worse type of thing, but I still liked Max a whole lot better than Coulter. That guy just scared the living daylights out of me on his best days. Sure enough, we reached Max’s office and Coulter offered me a seat in the most gentlemanlike manner: by slamming me down in it with a lot more force than what was strictly necessary. 

“Rae,” said Max as I was seated as uncomfortably as possible. My discomfort mainly stemmed from the fact that Coulter hadn’t sat down, he’d merely crossed his arms and was now standing right behind me. I could feel the huge figure of a man breathing down my neck hotly. He was probably just trying to psych me out. “I’m not pleased with you,” Max continued sternly. Yeah, no shit. Didn’t take a genius to figure that one out after he’d sent the Mr Hyde to his Dr Jekyll after me. 

I raised an eyebrow and stuck my chin forward defiantly – I was not going to give either of them the satisfaction of looking scared after the show that Coulter had just pulled. “I’m not following, Maxie,” I said, pretending that I was clueless as to the reason of their summoning me. 

“You knocked Darren out. He’s doing okay, by the way, one of his guards dropped him off at the infirmary.” 

“Good for him,” I grumbled. Of course, I was going to get a chewing out by Max for what I did. Darren had probably come crying to him like a teenager to his mother. Fucking pathetic. 

“Rae, you dislocated the guy’s jaw.”

“He had it coming.” 

“I don’t doubt that one bit.” Max laughed a little. “Look, Rae. I don’t like doing this either, but I have to. You know Darren, he’s kind of a chauvinistic pig and comes crying every time a woman beats him up.” 

I shrugged. Honestly, I was used to that type of behaviour. I’d finished first in my initiation class and basically all the male initiates had felt hurt in their fragile masculine pride by the fact that a _girl_ had beaten them every step along the way. I guessed that these types of uselessly complicated dynamics would never truly leave our minds. Eradicating prejudice is like trying to get rid of ants; when you kill one, then next one squeezes out from under the kitchen cabinet. 

“Look, Max, I don’t think I’ve done anything wrong, but I can lie. I’ll apologise to Darren and it’ll be fine, right?” 

Max sighed, pushing aside a few papers on his desk. He looked a little tired and there were a few more grey streaks in his hair than I remembered from the last time I’d seen him. Maybe he did work sometimes. Not that I knew. 

“Rae, I have to punish you. The problem is that Darren went over my head and talked to Craven. And you know how he gets. He’s a stickler for the rules and won’t rest until I’ve chewed you out.” 

I nodded, gulping down the hot surge of anger that was rising through me. This wasn’t Max’s fault. Max usually went through a lot to keep me out of trouble. One time, he’d even ‘misplaced’ a formal complaint from one of Jeanine Matthews’s slaves who’d come here on Erudite business and made the rude mistake of trying to interrogate me to find out Dauntless secrets. I hadn’t done anything bad, I’d just called her ‘a stuck-up nosy-ass potato-head’ which, really, should’ve at least earned me some points for creativity of insult. Max really was a good(-ish) guy – sometimes even he couldn’t keep me out of trouble, though. 

Craven, on the other hand, was not a good guy. Not even okay. He was the oldest leader, standing tall at fifty-seven years. He’d been around for a long time, terrorizing everyone with his stupid views and uptight attitudes. He didn’t usually have a problem with fights, but I guessed the problem with me was that he simply didn’t like me. For whatever reason. Very likely because of my genitalia – he was one of the hardliners who still believed that women should have the domestic jobs in Dauntless while men went out guarding the city. What bullshit. 

“I get it,” I replied.

Max let out a breath that he’d been holding in for a longer time now. He was visibly relieved that I wasn’t making this difficult for him. 

“Four informed me that you were trying to capture someone who was being shady, am I correct?” 

I nodded. 

“Okay, then. Your mission from now on is to catch these people and bring them to me. You’ll be working in the Control Room as usual.” He glanced nervously around the room. 

I raised an eyebrow. “What’s the catch, Maxie?” 

He smiled sheepishly. “It’s nothing, really. You’re just…you’re on probation, okay? You’ll have to be watched by a superior member while you’re looking into the matter.” 

“Four is a superior member.” My heart started beating faster and faster. He wasn’t going to make me work with someone else, was he? 

“Yes. And normally, it would be perfectly fine for him to watch you. However, as I’m sure you’re aware, initiation starts on Monday, right?” 

There it was. There was the catch. Four was an instructor for the little transfer kiddies coming to Dauntless and got the time off from the Control Rooms for that time every single year. Last year, I’d spent the eight weeks completely miserable, waiting for Zeke to come by every second of the day. Only then had I realized just how dependent I was on Four and his terrible jokes for entertainment at my miserable job. 

“Who will be there in his stead?” Max fidgeted again, taking great care to examine every single one of his fingernails and avoiding my look carefully along the way. Oh no. Who was it going to be? Craven? Lauren? Oh, please, God, don’t let it be Coulter. Please. 

A hot breath shot down my neck, indicating that Coulter had leaned down, coming closer to me. “ _I will_.” The words rolled off his tongue. He was enjoying every second of this. 

A shudder shot up and down my spine, chased by another one straight after. This couldn’t be happening. The words felt like a bullet sealing my fate. Me? Working with Eric Coulter of all people? That must’ve been the most ridiculous thing I’d ever heard. I mean, he’d probably kill me or something! This guy was insane. He had anger management issues, and he hated me! I was practically dead! 

“Max-”

“I’m not going to argue with you on this. It’s the only way I could let you keep your job.” 

I gulped down the words welling up in my throat. _Unfair_ was one of them. _Unfair, idiotic, fucking stupid, annoying_. The list went on. _Great idea, dipshit. Leaving me with a babysitter who probably sharpens knives in his free time_. 

“Get out now and maybe try to come up with a plan for how you’re going to do this,” said Max, his tone final. “Eric will be with you on Monday, after the morning drills, at the Control Room.” 

He sighed when I didn’t leave immediately but stayed for a few more moments, jutting my chin out defiantly. He really had this tired-of-your-shit act down to a science. What a condescending douchebag. (I was maybe being a little unfair because of the news he’d just broken to me, but who are you to judge?) 

“This is ridiculous,” I added finally, getting up from my chair. 

Max shrugged. “Whatever you say, Rae. Still, this is the third time this month that you’ve beaten someone up because they were ‘questioning your orders’ and while I have nothing against that sort of policy, it would help if you weren’t quite so quick to put my soldiers into the infirmary. So, it’s either this or the fence for at least a year. Take your pick.” 

“A _year_?” I had taken a hit to the ear, I was sure of it. At least I hoped I had, because Max couldn’t possibly be saying that I could possibly have to go to the fence for a year if I fucked this up - 

“A year.” 

Coulter’s smirk grew even wider and more amused as he moved to stand next to Max, finally taking his hot breath away from the nape of my neck. This stupid idiot, I’d hand his own ass to him on a silver platter. I’d make his life living hell if he wanted to play babysitter. He was going to regret ever being _born_ , for fuck’s sake. 

“I really don’t want to do this, but you’re not leaving me any choice.” 

“What the fuck, Max, there’s always a choice, don’t let Craven bully you into this-” 

“What’s it gonna be, chihuahua?”, interrupted Eric Coulter, “Fence or being watched like a baby?” 

I turned my head really slowly, narrowing my eyes at Coulter. He was looking at me with an evil glint in his eyes, making bile rise in my throat. My fist clenched almost on its own accord and as Coulter’s smile grew wider and wider and even more delighted at my obvious misery, I couldn’t help my fist when it drew back and sizzled toward his face with blinding speed. The delicious taste of victory was still on my tongue when I imagined the way that his cheekbone would give way beneath my fist, the sound of his body hitting the wall when I kicked him in the stomach – 

But it never came to that. My fist was stopped mid-air by what felt like a steel glove encasing it and holding it very, very still. Coulter and I stood like statues for a few heartbeats, my fist in his. It was at that moment that I realised if this man wanted to, he could chuck me around like a rag doll and probably wouldn’t even break a sweat. 

“Babysitting,” I pressed through gritted teeth. Coulter’s smile widened. 

Max badly covered up his laugh with a cough and I had to refrain from spitting on him. That’s how angry I was. 

“Wonderful. Then it’s settled. You’ll be handling this matter _quietly_.” He gave me another pointed look, probably trying to tell me that I wasn’t going to get away with punching someone unconscious this time. “There’s no record of inner-faction crime since the system was installed. I don’t want any of this to get out, or Jeanine Matthews will have my ass. Understood?” 

“Yes, Max.” I groaned. “Can I go now? You’ve ruined my day enough and I want to get something to eat before I punch someone else.” 

Max nodded and gestured for me to leave the office. 

Great. This was really just grand. Now I had to deal with none other than Eric Coulter watching my every move, peering over my shoulder and making me question every decision that I made. I was so angry that there must’ve been steam rising from my ears by now. I fucking hated Max so, so much. Sure, I was getting away with a slap on the wrist even though Craven was probably pushing for a much harsher punishment, but this was doing things to my dignity. Being watched like a child. Fuck. I was going to be Dauntless’s laughing stock for years to come. 

I was fuming so much that I didn’t see the hand cutting through the steam coming out of my nose. I was completely blindsided and before I could react, I was slammed against the wall, the back of my head producing a sickening _crunch_ when it hit the unplastered bricks. A thick, ropy arm braced itself against my neck, pinning me and cutting off just enough of my airflow to make me feel lightheaded. I was probably wheezing like an idiot, too. 

“You know, little doggie,” hissed a seething voice right next to my ear. “I don’t know why Max has such a soft spot for you, but I don’t give a shit. The second that I become Head of Dauntless when Craven has retired, I’m locking you away on the fence for the rest of your life.” 

I gulped – at least, I tried to, but that didn’t really work since Coulter’s ridiculously thick arm was still all but choking me. 

“If you mouth off to me one more time, Rae Harper,” he said, his breath ghosting over my face. He was close enough to kiss me, his full lips pulled back into an ugly sneer. “I will beat the Candor right out of you.” 

With that, he pulled away almost too quickly, leaving me stumbling and gasping for breath. That didn’t stop me from grinning up at him and wanting to have the last word. 

“Well, Coulter, if I didn’t know better I’d say you enjoy choking me,” I said and turned away, prancing off down the corridor even though my lungs protested at every single step I took. I knew that this was probably my death sentence, but I didn’t really care enough to deal with any more of Coulter’s shit right now. That guy needed to fucking calm down and pick someone else to bully. Preferably someone his own size – even though he was going to have a difficult time finding such a person because as far as I knew, mammoths were extinct.


	3. First Clues

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello! 
> 
> Thank you so much for reading, have a wonderful day! 
> 
> M

When I arrived at the cafeteria (in a thoroughly rotten mood, might I add), most of my friends had already finished their dinner and were enjoying each other’s company, laughing and joking around together. They’d probably go to the Pit later tonight and have a few drinks – who did they think they were, enjoying themselves while I was drowning in torrents of misery? 

“She’s alive!” someone yelled as I took my place between Four and the younger Pedrad brother, Uriah. Four turned to look at me with his usual stony façade, but having known him for such a long time, I saw that there was actual worry beneath it. 

“What happened?” he asked. He looked so serious that, had it been any other day, I would have had to suppress a laugh. Not in the mood I was in, though. 

“Oh, Seventeen. Why so serious? Just a bit of a lover’s squabble.” The words came out a little more biting than intended – I didn’t have the capacity to feel remorse over snapping at Four, however, as I was still too angry. I scoured the table for something edible and, sure enough, the only thing left was a bunch of dry chicken breasts and some broccoli. Whatever, better than nothing. Zeke, the food-hogging ass had probably nabbed the burger I’d managed to score earlier, I thought, as I piled food on the biodegradable plate in front of me. When I began shovelling it into my mouth, the attention of everyone at the table suddenly shifted and I found myself at the centre of many inquisitive stares. Even Lauren, who hadn’t talked to me since I beat her in initiation (okay, fine, perhaps there had also been some incident involving a cup of coffee and a salt shaker), raised a curious pierced eyebrow.   
You see, I did truly love these people. Since my initiation four years ago, the two-years-older Four and I had grown to be almost inseparable. Of course, it was an odd paring seeing as he was of the quiet, brooding sort and I was basically the polar opposite – outgoing, funny, beautiful, witty, intelligent…the list goes on. But it worked. He made sure that I didn’t kill myself in any of my reckless stunts and I made sure that he actually did something fun every once in a while. 

Zeke was the third musketeer in the equation, with a loud and braying laugh and a heart big enough to manage putting up with the two of us every single day. His girlfriend, Shauna, was mostly quiet but had grown used to us over the years. I didn’t think she liked me much, but I couldn’t quite bring myself to care; she’d just have to deal with me having a fixed spot in Zeke’s life. Lauren was a little reserved towards me as well. I didn’t think that she cared about me having been dragged off by Eric Coulter, but alas, she was proving me wrong. Sort of. 

“What happened, really?” asked Four, concern thickening his voice. He had always been like that. I suspected that he’d had a younger sibling in his home faction, someone he’d had to leave behind on Choosing Day (not that the mysterious twit ever talked about his life before Dauntless). That was the only theory I could come up with as to why he was so concerned with my wellbeing. “Just spit it out.” 

The question caused a fresh surge of anger to well up in the pit of my stomach when I recollected what I had just been sentenced to. I stabbed a piece of chicken maybe a little too roughly, bending the fork and making an indent on the biodegradable material of my plate. It looked like the lids of salt and pepper shakers. 

“I’ve been assigned a new job.” I sliced my knife viciously through the chicken in front of me, cutting out a large piece and stuffing it into my mouth. Still chewing, I added, “Temporarily.” 

Four raised an eyebrow instead of voicing the question. 

“I get to work on finding these two people that Darren cost us today,” I said. “With a ‘superior officer’ as a babysitter.” 

“That’s not so bad, who’s it gonna be?” 

I stabbed a piece of broccoli and raised it into the air, pointing across the room over to Eric Coulter’s table with my loaded fork as I did so. “The Frown Princess.” 

That was enough to make the entire table burst out laughing. I didn’t laugh, merely sat there and waited for them to be done with their schadenfreude. Assholes, all of them. 

Even Four couldn’t help letting out a few of his rumbling chuckles. His hair was ruffled, probably because he’d ran his hands through it in his worry and his lips pulled back to reveal two neat, even rows of white teeth. His deep-set eyes looked further than most other people’s eyes did; as if he could spot a lie from just looking at the liar. In another world, I thought, I might’ve found him attractive. If we hadn’t met the way we had, there might’ve been a different outcome. If it hadn’t happened because I couldn’t go back to the dorms during initiation after being ranked first and had slept on his couch for the last week, there might’ve been some sort of tension. I might’ve been into his silent, stoic, brooding disposition. But that wasn’t the way it was. My initiation class, as Four had told me later, had been a particularly rough bunch. There’d been multiple stabbings of those placing first, therefore I was frankly a little freaked out about staying with these people after I’d beat my last opponent in the physical stage. Still, I was glad it hadn’t happened differently. Four was like a brother to me. 

“What?!” Zeke pressed out between two violent bursts of laughter. “Your punishment for beating someone’s face in is to spend an unclear amount of time with someone whose face you want to beat in?” They all erupted into another burst of laughter, one after another calming down for a second and then bursting out in an even more hysterical fit. All at my expense. 

What great friends I had. 

“Sorry, little ray of sunshine, but this is a little ridiculous,” Zeke wheezed, trying to get some air back into his lungs. “I mean, what do they think is gonna happen? Anyone wanna bet on who throws the first punch?” 

They all laughed again. 

I was about to say something really, really mean to Zeke when I felt a large, warm hand grip down comfortingly on my shoulder. I opened a fist I couldn’t even remember making and looked over to Four, who was giving me a small smile, squeezing my shoulder tightly. 

“Don’t worry, Rae,” he said quietly, “I’m sure it’ll be fine. It’s only two months and I’ll be there for you, okay?” 

It doesn’t really matter what kind of ‘faction before blood’ bullshit they cram down our throats during initiation: No one really ever leaves their origin faction behind. You always keep a little piece of what you were inside you. It’ll always be home to you. And just like it was with everyone else, the Abnegation in Four had never really left. And in these moments, I was especially glad that he was my friend, because no one could pick up my moods the way that he could and no one else than him could really discourage me from hitting someone in the face. He could talk me out of basically anything. Nonetheless, the thought of Coulter made my fists itch the way they never had before. 

God, even the thought of that asshole made me angry all over again. Fuck. The insistent squeezing on my shoulder made me calm down once again and slowly but surely, I returned to the table with my friends sitting in front of me. They’d stopped their cackling by now, a fact that I was infinitely grateful for. 

“So, what’s the case? I mean, what are you going to be investigating?” asked Zeke, drawing another chuckle from Uriah next to me. 

“Classified, you oaf.” I smiled, now finally relaxing a little. “If I told you, I’d have to kill you.” 

They all laughed good-naturedly again and I went back to my food. After dinner, we all went to the Pit to get a few more drinks and the last thing I remembered was falling asleep on the floor of my apartment with my shoes on at three in the morning, Four lying next to me. His soothing voice was the soundtrack I drifted off to.

~ 

“What do we do now?” 

Eric Coulter was sitting in the chair that usually belonged to Four, his feet up on the control panel and a laptop perched precariously on his lap. Every time he went to take a sip of his black, scathing coffee, the device wiggled around, a little like it was about to fall off and slide to the floor. It shouldn’t have bothered me as much as it did that he was sitting where my friend usually sat during our shifts together. Only now did I realize how dependent I was on Four to make this job more bearable. I was, quite frankly, a little mad at myself and my stupid temper for manoeuvring me into this rut. I’d been meaning to speak to Max about a promotion this month, actually, but I guessed that was off the table now. 

When Coulter had finished his coffee, he picked up a paper bag of nuts from the control panel. While he was stuffing his mouth, little crumbs here and there fell down, peppering his black jeans and black t-shirt. He merely brushed them down, letting them adorn on the floor instead. 

I ground my teeth together. He was doing this simply to annoy me, I was certain. 

On the laptop screen, the surveillance tapes from Friday were playing, again and again. We’d tried to find some shot of these two people resurfacing somewhere on the tapes, but there was nothing to be found. I figured that there had to be some type of secret passage at the junction, which Eric immediately shot down, saying that it wasn’t possible because every room of the compound was well known and mapped by the housing department down in Abnegation. 

It had been going on like this for the past three hours. I made a (perfectly reasonable) suggestion and Coulter did everything in his might to shoot me down, simply to spite me. This was going to be absolutely _unbearable_. I didn’t know how I was going to get through weeks, maybe even months of working with him. He was so…provocative, and completely unashamed of it as well. 

It was absolutely, utterly and completely infuriating. 

“For the last time,” he said, “I’m not going to walk over to this corridor to have you look for some magical secret passage into a forbidden land.” He stuffed another nut into his mouth. Maybe I could substitute them with pebbles? I was sure he wouldn’t notice. He was stuffing the morsels into his mouth bite by bite without looking or chewing. Only the Lord knows how the guy was retaining _that_ muscle mass with his ridiculous snacking habits. 

“Coulter, come on, it’s literally a five-minute walk and you just need to let me look around quickly. If anything, it might tell us about whether the cameras have been tampered with.” I thought that my suggestion sounded perfectly reasonable. It fell on completely deaf ears, though, as Coulter kept munching on his stupid nuts. I gritted my teeth, feeling the ache of my muscles from the morning drills. I’d talk to Max about switching to afternoon. That was the least he could do after locking me in a room with my future executioner. 

“Harper,” he said lowly, dangerously. “If you don’t shut up right now, I’ll make you. I’m watching this and trying to see something.” 

My upper lip curled. “Oh, of course. I forgot that you see with your ears.” 

He didn’t dignify my comment with a response, merely went on staring at the screen as if he could scare the tapes into showing something even after he’d gone through them about seventy times. 

This went on for another twenty minutes, until I simply couldn’t take it anymore. I stood up, kicking back the rolling chair and turning to the door. My hand was already on the doorknob when I spoke. 

“Coulter, I’m going to investigate. Come with me or don’t, but I’m not going to let you muzzle and leash me.” 

I probably undermined my bold statement somewhat by immediately showing through the door without waiting for his reply. I was sure that he was not hesitant to reply, saying something about how I better got back before he’d get mad, but I didn’t care. I wanted to get this done, and this was the only way to do it (that I could discern at that moment). So, I walked down corridor after corridor, hearing his heavy footsteps behind me. He didn’t catch up even though he easily could’ve – I didn’t question why. He was probably waiting for me to embarrass myself when I found out that there was nothing at the scene of the crime. 

I walked to the junction between Corridor 16C and 20L. It was right where the south wing joined the east wing, where the guard quarters were suddenly replaced by kitchens. Near this place, it wasn’t exactly wonderful to live; that was why it was only the guard quarters over here. They were the people almost closest to the cut-off line during initiation – the only ones below them were those that would become shop assistants, hairdressers or servers at one of the restaurants. Some of them even had to become clerks in leader’s offices (my personal nightmare). 

We turned another corner and there I saw it clearly: the little corner that neither Camera 24 nor 25 could reach. It was not much, just a little nook in the junction (which, in turn, was quite spacious, with three corridors leading away in three different directions). The one place no camera could reach was a wall on the side opposite of where I’d come from. It was the usual Dauntless stone grey. There weren’t any windows in this corridor – mainly because it was half-submerged underground like the entire south wing. This wasn’t my favourite part of the compound. I didn’t like being underground all that much, it made me feel trapped like a mouse in a hole. 

“Now you ran here for what reason exactly?” said Coulter after he’d caught up with me. He didn’t sound all that taunting – he was probably just warming up. 

“Something has to be here. Something that we’re missing.” I looked around, running my hands over the stone wall. I knocked on it just to be sure, and of course – nothing. I continued touching and knocking on the completely unmarred wall. 

“Can you stop this now? You look like a crazy person. They probably just overrode the surveillance system and erased the security footage.” 

I snorted. “Why on earth would they erase the security footage from one corridor, but not all the others? Why this one? And, most importantly, how could they have overridden the code while they were running away and I was watching in real time?”

“Maybe they did it all beforehand and switched up the footage. Or maybe they have an accomplice in the Control Room.” He glanced at me, smirking stupidly. I gritted my teeth hard; someday I was going to smack that stupid grin straight off his face. 

I shook my head. “No.” 

Coulter raised an eyebrow, which I saw as my cue to elaborate.

“Well, they ran away from the guards I sent. So, it must’ve been in real time. They couldn’t have been waiting in this nook for me to lose interest in the cameras and come out later, either. I watched the tape for the next twenty-four hours and neither of the two emerged. At any point. No one really comes through here, either. This is a very strange place.” 

He didn’t reply to that, seemingly thinking it over. Therefore, I went back to knocking on the wall and examining every millimetre as closely as possible. I was honestly desperate. My hunch had to be right, I couldn’t have come here for nothing. Coulter would take the piss out of me forever. 

My hands roamed over the last few stones, knocking and examining the cracks and nooks and crannies. I must’ve pressed some button; done something that was right. Because the wall suddenly gave way beneath my fingers. I pressed down, trying to find an opening or something of the sort among the sharp grey stones – and sure enough, they relented. 

The ‘door’ – if you could even call it that – was about as high as my thighs and barely as wide as Coulter’s shoulders. It was very narrow, but just spacious enough for me to squeeze through. Before bending down, I looked up to Coulter and gave him the most satisfied, shit-eating grin in the world. I was right and he was wrong; this was absolutely wonderful. 

“You got lucky,” he said, “this is nothing you should get cocky about.” 

Laughter bubbled up my throat, but I didn’t reply, opting to let him have the last word if he so desired. I’d won either way. However, before I could get in the shaft in front of me, a strong hand gripped the back of my neck. 

“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” asked Coulter, gripping me a little too tightly for it to be reassuring. 

“Investigating,” I replied, as if it was the most obvious thing in the world. Because it was. Because this was what we were supposed to do; we were supposed to find out what was happening. I wasn’t going to let him treat me like a child. This was my chance to prove that I was a responsible member of Dauntless and that sending me off to spend the rest of my miserable existence at the wall was a terrible, terrible waste of my talents. 

“Are you crazy? Unarmed and alone? I don’t think I’ll fit through there.” He puffed himself up like a peacock, as if I needed reminding of how gigantic he was. 

“Coulter, I need to go through there. Maybe there’s some evidence to find. Maybe they already know we’re onto them.” I shook off his grip and climbed through the hole in the wall before he could do anything else. “I’ll be back soon, don’t get your panties in a twist.” With an evil glint in my eye, I added, “Though I do think it’s cute how much you worry about me.”

I left him angry and groping for a response when the door behind me shut, metal clanking against metal.


	4. Light 'Em Up

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi! 
> 
> I really hope you enjoy this chapter! Comments with any type of feedback are greatly appreciated! 
> 
> Have a wonderful day,   
> M

The doorway shut behind me, sizzling as it sealed itself into place with a metallic clang that roared in my eyes long after the sound had faded. It felt like a death sentence. Without the sliver of light coming through the opening, it was pitch dark in here, with nothing to lead the way. A shiver ghosted across my skin at the sight of the stretch of blackness I was facing. Because of its cold and stony walls, this tunnel felt a little bit like one of the ventilation shafts that had been built into the underground portion of the compound to get fresh air to all the rooms, even the ones that were fully submerged. Maybe this was one of them, only abandoned and hidden by the secret doorway? 

To be honest, I felt very un-dauntless at that moment. Frankly, I was close to crapping my pants. With another shiver, I recalled my fear landscape: I’d had to crawl through a tunnel quite similar to this one, but during that exercise, I’d been constantly chased by the sounds of something slithering behind me or in front of me, alerting me to a presence I registered but couldn’t place anywhere. I shook my head as if to get rid of water in my ears; I couldn’t think about this now. I had to soldier on through. Feeling my way ahead of me with my hands, I started crawling slowly through the shaft, one metre after another. After a good few minutes of crawling, I even managed to almost stab my thigh with the knife that I’d been carrying around everywhere since the fateful day when I’d almost gotten beaten to death during initiation. 

My stomach was tied in worried knots although I was doing my best to calm down. I needed to prove to Coulter that I could do this. I needed to be stronger than him now; I was not going to let him win this time. However, the longer I was moving through the seemingly endless maze, the more a feeling of hopelessness made itself known in the pit of my stomach. What if this led nowhere? What if I was going to crawl on and on and on and would never find an end; and then I wouldn’t know which way I’d come and I’d never find my way back home and then I’d die here, alone and terrified? 

As my fears kept spiralling and fading into one another, I tried to level my breathing and convince myself that nothing of the sort was going to happen. I was going to make it out of here just fine. 

Eventually, when I was toying with the idea of turning around and making my way back to Coulter with my tail tucked between my legs, I reached a bend in the tunnel and turned to find – hallelujah – that there was a lit end not far away. This did not mean safety, though. I had to be really, really cautious now. 

One bit after another, I crawled on, taking great care to not make a single noise. When I was about a metre away from the opening, I got down as low as possible, flatting myself against the stones. Through the end of the shaft, I could see a room that was – I gasped – about as big as the dining hall. My jaw fell open stupidly when I stared, in awe, at the gigantic hall in front of me. This place was so _huge_. It must’ve been at least twenty feet underground, windowless (I’d felt a steady decline throughout the tunnel) and even lower than ninety percent of the compound. I’d probably just discovered some forgotten cargo hall that hadn’t shown up in the Abnegation housing department plans. 

Luckily, the end of the shaft I had come through was suspended at least eight feet above the ground and therefore, I was almost sure that no one could see me as long as their eyes stayed on eyelevel. I inched a little closer to the edge, peering down into the hall. 

This room was insane. There were rows and rows of tables filled with cardboard boxes and wooden crates. These, in turn, were stuffed to the brim with something I could not make out from where I was perched above the ground. Whoever this room belonged to, they were up to something and I had a feeling deep in my gut that they weren’t exactly crafting macramé owls. 

Suddenly, a sense of dread pierced quickly through my stomach. There were voices, talking below me. I inched back a little and tried to make myself as flat as possible, trying, however, to sharpen my ears and listen to what these people were saying. It sounded like they were arguing – 

“No!” bellowed one of the voices suddenly. Dark. Heavy. Bit of a lisp. “We can’t do that,” they added, a little more quietly. I strained my ears to try and keep up with the conversation. 

“We have to,” replied a different voice. It was light, yet a little smoky nonetheless. Distinctly female. Neither of them sounded familiar, though. At least I didn’t think so. 

The man sounded increasingly aggravated as he replied to his female compatriot. “Ina, we can’t just ruin all of it. It’s gonna cost us so, so much.” There was a hint of desperation in his voice as he all but pled with the woman.

“This isn’t a discussion I’m willing to have. These idiots found us. Not that I believe Coulter, the huge ape, can catch anyone with his gigantic hands and disproportionately small brain, but I don’t know about that Harper girl. She could turn out dangerous. We can’t take any chances with her.” I smirked. I wasn’t the only one who thought that Coulter was an idiot – that did indeed fill my heart with a bit happiness, even in light of the pinch I was currently in. 

“Oh, come on,” replied the man. “They’re both too dumb to find anything. They’re probably still looking at the security footage and trying to find out how someone could’ve escaped their _ingenius_ surveillance system.” 

“I won’t discuss this with you. Get the others and do it now.” _The others_. There were more! 

Footsteps retreated below me, luckily not coming close to my position. I still hadn’t had the chance to see if I could recognise anyone, mostly because I was terrified they’d see me if I got any closer to the edge. I didn’t dare move now either, seeing as Ina might have still been down there. However, I soon heard more footsteps retreating, getting quieter and eventually fading into the huge warehouse-like hall. 

I stayed for a few more moments, listening intently and trying to discern whether anyone was within earshot. It was completely silent save for some very far-away footsteps and sharp hissing whispers. 

This was my chance. Thus, I refused to grant myself any time to mull this over and climbed closer and closer until I reached the very end of the tunnel. Now I could see the room in its full glory. It was even bigger than I’d originally expected – there were two corridors leading away on the opposite side of the room (probably including another exit, I hoped), as well as a ladder that would help me down into the room. 

Studying the room one last time for signs of life, I decided that it was now or never for me. 

I set my feet on the ladder gingerly, making my hesitant way down into the room. 

I was about to go closer to the tables and investigate what was in the boxes – it seemed to be some kind of glass vials, maybe serums? But what would these people be making serums for? 

A few steps further, and a few steps further – until I heard the unmistakable sound of someone approaching me again. 

In a panic, I decided that I needed to hide, because I wasn’t done investigating. I couldn’t risk psyching them out and having them run away from me, possibly making me miss a bigger picture (though I had no idea who _they_ actually were). We’d already driven the suspects deeper into their hole. Any more mistakes and they’d probably be so careful that I’d never find any of them. 

“Are you sure?” sounded the voice from before, now sounding a little further away than before. 

“Yes. Do it.” Ina’s voice was fierce and determined, not an ounce of weakness to be detected.

Something seemed to be unscrewed, a lid being dropped to the ground. Liquid being poured over the cardboard boxes. Wait, what? Hold on. They’d been talking about destroying something – now I realized what they’d been arguing about. 

_No_. This wasn’t happening. _Fuck, no, no, no_. The sound of liquid being poured out retreated further and further. Right until it stopped. 

It was followed by the sound of a match being dragged over the side of the cardboard box, but not igniting. 

_Fuck._

Okay, time to think quickly. Where could I go? I would have to follow Ina and her friend outside. All while neither being noticed nor burning to death. Fuck. How was I going to do this? 

The match was dragged again. I exhaled heavily when it failed to ignite a second time. 

I needed to concoct some type of plan. _Fast._

Rolling out from under the table, I got into a crouching position. Through the cracks between two boxes, I saw two people standing on the other side of the room, at the entrance to one of the corridors leading into darkness. I couldn’t make out any of their features. They were wearing Dauntless black, though, which was an important information that I couldn’t omit when I told Eric about this later (on the off-chance that I made it out of here alive and in one piece). 

Okay, think. They had only poured gasoline on the crates on their side of the room, rightly thinking that the contents of this room, which were mainly made of wood or cardboard, would burn just fine on their own. Climbing back up into the shaft didn’t seem like the greatest idea as I didn’t quite feel like being suffocated to death in a confined space and die painfully while being smoked like a piece of pulled pork. Maybe, however, I could make it across the room and into one of the corridors (preferably the one they weren’t walking into as I was still possessed with a childish hope that I could make it out of here alive without jeopardising our investigation). 

Half-expecting a third match to fail to ignite, I jerked around and fell down flat on my back when I heard the sound of a spark throwing. I got up just in time to see the two forms retreating quickly down the left tunnel. 

Then, within seconds, the room was enveloped in bright orange flames.

~

Time stood still. I stared, open-mouthed and panting, at the wall of fire that soared up in front of me like a mountain, licking the ceiling with its many tongues. 

Owing to Ina and her lackey’s ostensible laziness, the unaccelerated flames were still somewhat contained on that side of the room – but only for now. They were spreading fast. The ladder leading up the way I’d come from was already gone, eaten up and burnt away, only a few charred strands of rope remaining. Now, the only thing I could do was try to slip through one of the corridors after Ina and the man, thought they were increasingly more cut off from me by the orange-red-yellow flames. The room had gone stifling and hot within moments as the fire was consuming all the oxygen that was here; I was already beginning to feel a little lightheaded. In my panic, I tried to counteract this by sucking in even larger gulps of air, which of course meant that I swallowed down more smoke. 

_Think, and think quick_. I looked to my left, and sure enough – the fire hadn’t yet reached the wall on the far end, I still had time to round it and try and get through to the corridor. My only chance was to run.

And run I did. 

My feet were burning, my lungs were filling with grey smoke, but I somehow managed to wedge my way past the fire stretching for the ceiling. The entrance to the right tunnel seemed like the passage to safety, a magical door leading me back into my home dimension after I’d entered into this odd upside-down. I ran like a crazy person, feeling heat at the side of my body. 

_Fuck_. Panic was searing through my veins like another fire burning me from within. _Crack_. A tongue of flame reached out for me, burning my upper arm. An angry, bubbling red mark welled up, but I kept running, running. Almost as if it had appeared out of nowhere, a piece of wood wrapped around my foot and I stumbled, falling face-first to the floor. I caught most of the fall with my hands and got back up again almost immediately, ignoring the searing pain in my ankle as I kept running. 

A moment before I reached the corridor that would hopefully lead me into safety, the fire next to me cracked again. A threatening hand reached out for me; it was coming closer and closer, almost grabbing me – 

And I lunged for the corridor, all but throwing myself against the cool stone. The fire was still approaching fast, but I kept running down, deeper into the earth. Or so I thought. The flames had nothing to eat in this tunnel – though that would only serve to slow them down, not to stop them. 

I didn’t stop running until I reached a bend in the tunnel. Turning around, I saw the bright orange flames in the huge room, destroying every piece of evidence tying the two strangers to this…this case. Fuck. I felt like a police officer in one of the pre-war novels I liked to nick from the Erudite libraries in town. This was all completely ridiculous. Why had I even signed up for this shit? I should’ve remained with the city guards as Coulter had advised me to do on my first day as a faction member. Patrolling the perimeter and squashing Erudite’s pathetic attempts to take over the government seemed like a much more attractive choice of occupation at the moment. 

I coughed. This wasn’t good. I didn’t even want to look at my burnt arm right now, so I started running again, this time falling into a jog. The flames couldn’t reach me within the next few minutes because they’d have a lot harder time making their way through a stone corridor than through a room full of paper and wood. 

Well, there was at least one upside to this whole mess: At least Ina and her evil friend hadn’t seen me.

The corridor took another three turns, away from the compound, it seemed. Finally, though, I reached an end. There was a locked door in front of me – it seemed heavy, like it led _outside_. The thought of fresh outside air filled me with newfound energy, pushing me through the last steps toward my gate to freedom. 

I coughed again; this time retching up a greyish substance. No. I wasn’t going to die from this. I’d escaped from a fucking _fire_ , I wouldn’t die of smoke poisoning afterwards. 

I pushed down the handle, threw myself against the door, basically did everything I could to see if it would open. But it didn’t budge an inch. Shit, this was the first day of our investigations and I was already completely screwed? I couldn’t have known that this would escalate so much. To be honest, I’d expected that we’d find these two people somewhere, Eric would find out what they’d exchanged – probably cigarettes, alcohol or even some type of illegal contraband like books from the forbidden list, and everything would be fine from then on. I hadn’t known I was signing up to find an entire ring of crime. 

Finally, I reached into my hair and pulled out a bobby pin, jamming it into the lock with sweaty fingers. I felt ridiculous even trying it, but this was my last resort. I wasn’t going to die here. Not today. Not without punching Coulter in the face one last time. 

Fumbling around with the bobby pin for a while, I eventually found that this wasn’t going to be very helpful either and pushed it back into my hair. I felt myself getting weaker by the second, smoke poisoning my lungs. If I didn’t get out of here fast, it would be my sure demise. 

As a real last resort, I grabbed the knife protruding from my belt and jammed it into the crack between the door and the frame. A burnt smell wedged its way to my nose – the fire was getting closer, tacked on to my heels. 

“Come on,” I rasped out, my vocal chords grating against one another. This _had_ to work. The knife had to do something. With wet palms, I kept running it up and down the crack, hoping to find something to push away, something to slice through, anything – _click_. 

In a trance, I reached up, pushing down the handle. The door all but fell open. Bright white light blinded me, making me squint my eyes. When I recovered, I quickly slid out and shut the door behind me. I was outside. This was the outside. 

I sucked a deep breath into my lungs, drawing in as much of the sweet, fresh air as I could. I wasn’t very far from the Dauntless compound; I could see it to my right. It was probably about a mile away. 

Relieved laughter bubbled up through my throat – I’d made it out alive. 

I’d like to see Eric Coulter do _that_.


	5. I Think We Have an Emergency

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi everyone! 
> 
> I really hope you enjoy this chapter, thank you so much for reading. It really does mean the world. 
> 
> Have a wonderful day,   
> M
> 
> Title is taken from "Emergency" by Paramore

With zeal that was surprising considering the sorry state I was in, I tried to remember as much as possible about this place. I ingrained into my mind the exact location so that I’d have something to show to Coulter later. He’d probably be furious with me for going through with this, but at least now, we had some kind of lead. We knew where these people operated, and we knew that they were dealing with some illegal contraband that had suspiciously looked like glass vials full of an unidentifiable liquid. And, most importantly, we now knew that there was more to this than met the eye. Coulter and I would have to take great care to cover our tracks in the future: Ina and her band of evildoers were after us. 

When I’d shovelled in as much information as my dazed mind could handle, I commenced my trek toward the compound. Every single muscle in my body screamed at the movement. Only then did I realize the extent of my injuries – I’d sprained my ankle and inhaled a lot more smoke than I’d originally assumed. And then there was the angry red welt on my arm. The fire had gotten me good, leaving bloody bubbles all over. 

To put it nicely, I felt like I’d been chewed thoroughly and then spat back out. 

I sighed. Now I had no other choice but to push through and force myself to make the journey from here to the compound – nobody was coming to carry me; and if anything, I needed to tell Coulter about this. And then possibly lie down for the next two to three years. Every step sent scathing agony right through my ankle into my calf and up my leg. This was the most excruciating half hour I’d ever had to walk. 

But I didn’t stop. I kept going on and on, and I felt like I’d been walking forever when I finally reached the compound. Usually, one mile was a distance I could run without even breaking a sweat, but not with my lungs thoroughly fucked to hell. 

It was probably a little past noon when I eventually lumbered through the back door to the Dauntless home. I had decided not to go through the front entrance that was designated for visitors from other factions, because attracting attention could possibly alert Ina and so far, I didn’t think that she’d caught wind of my discoveries. Therefore, I snuck in, stopping at corners and hiding away when I heard voices approaching down the hall. 

Fuck, where was I going to go? What was I to do? I needed to talk to someone. More pressingly, I needed someone to piece me back together. 

_Four_. I needed Four. But he was probably off training the initiates. So, I went deeper and deeper into the compound, still unseen by everyone around me (except those in the Control Room, but it was probably unmanned right now since Coulter and I had left it high and dry). My vision kept blurring, pulling at the shapes and figures in front of me. I couldn’t give up now. I had to go to my room, be quiet about this. I couldn’t tip anyone off. If we spooked these people, they’d go underground forever and we wouldn’t have a single chance finding them. 

No, I needed to be stealthy about this. They couldn’t know that I’d found their hideout and heard them talking. 

_Ina_. I was going to remember that name until the day I died; it was, quite literally, burnt into my mind.

Every step I took cost me more than the last. I could’ve screamed from all the pain, had I not felt like my lungs would burst if I made any noise whatsoever.

Another corridor. Another corner. I walked. Tiredness crept into my limbs; I was raising my legs slowly. Burning pain shot through every step. My arm was scathing hot; it hurt so badly. What was I going to do? Where would I go?   
What if no one would find me? 

I drew in one last rattling breath and even had time to hear the thump as my body hit the ground.

~

I slept a dreamless sleep for what felt like weeks, until the sound of voices woke me. There were at least two of them; one person was quite angry, speaking heatedly to someone else, who answered in steady, deep, rumbling words. They both sounded aggravated but for some reason, the second voice listened almost demurely to what the first one had to say while they constantly teetered on the brink of shouting yet didn’t reach full vocal capacity. 

After trying fruitlessly to understand what either of them was saying, I wrestled my eyes open and looked at the stone ceiling above me. White-painted walls. Something beeping next to my head. 

This was the infirmary – trust me, I’d been here enough times to be able to recognise that tinny noise within seconds. Blinking blearily, I tried to find the source of the argument that was going down. I scanned the room to the best of my abilities and finally found two large forms gesturing wildly and almost screaming at each other. One was tall, with tan skin and dark hair. Eyebrows like caterpillars. The other was shorter but no less intimidating, with thick arms and a barrel-like torso, dark hair cropped close to the skull. _Four and Coulter_. 

“Twenty-Nine,” I croaked finally. The two of them all but jumped at the sound of my wrecked voice, jerking around to look at me. 

“You’re awake,” said Four with such tenderness that I bit down on the sarcastic remark of ‘Yeah, thanks, Captain Obvious.” My best friend stared at me for a few dumbstruck moments, eventually breaking his stupor and crossing the room with three quick strides. He knelt down next to the bed, getting to my eye level and staring at me intently. “What happened to you?” 

Our moment, however, was interrupted by Coulter barking at me like a Rottweiler. “Harper,” he snapped, “I told you not to go in there alone. What happened? Who did this?” 

I laughed as much as my pained lungs would allow me. “That’s the first thing you care about? Why, baby, are you still mad about our fight?” 

Neither of the two men laughed at my joke, but Four seemed grimly satisfied that I was making fun of Coulter. He also seemed to agree that this was a ridiculous thing to ask first thing after I’d woken up and shot the Frown Princess a glare, causing the man to hunch his shoulders and glare back. What a childish twit. 

“How – how long was I out?” 

“16 hours,” said Four. “It’s Tuesday, half past six. AM. Coulter found you yesterday, passed out somewhere in the compound. Said he only found you because he was sick of waiting for you by that door and went to the Control Room.” He took a deep breath, fixing his dark blue stare on me. “Rae, you could’ve died. What were you thinking?” 

I smiled a little, although it hurt my bruised lips. “That I wanted to catch these bastards.” I looked over to Coulter. “One man, one woman. Her name is Ina. This is big, Coulter.” I interrupted myself with a cough. More black gunk came out and Four wordlessly handed me a tissue to wipe my mouth off with. “I found their hiding spot. Let’s talk about this when I don’t feel like I’m about to barf my lungs out, okay?” 

Coulter nodded wordlessly and turned around, leaving the infirmary. 

“I’m so sorry you have to work with this…this ass, Rae,” said Four, brushing back my hair lovingly. There was regret in his eyes, but I couldn’t tell whether that was because he felt sorry for me or because he’d just used a swear word. 

“It’s okay,” I said simply, because every single word I spoke cost a lot more than it was worth. 

It took another few hours until I was ready to get up and when I was eventually released from the infirmary, it was almost dinner time. Gail complained loudly, for a long time, that I had been stupid enough to ‘inhale buckets full of smoke’ and wanted to ‘get up and go back to undoing her work of stitching me up’ so soon, but I only smiled at her fondly. Gail and I had a wonderful relationship (by which I mean that she thoroughly enjoyed yelling at me for always being so reckless and getting myself in trouble at every opportunity). Four insisted on not leaving my side as I all but crawled to the dining hall, my left arm almost completely wrapped in white bandages and another layer of bandages around the ankle I’d twisted. All in all, I’d been pretty lucky, considering I could still breathe and hadn’t broken any bones. Gail had told me with a sour look on her face that she was sorry, but there was nothing she could do about the scarring. I shrugged. Being a Dauntless without scars was like being a dove without wings. The luckiest thing, however, was that I hadn’t passed out due to the smoke inhalation but due to shock – the fire hadn’t actually done any permanent damage to my lungs. My voice was still hoarse, but it had gotten a whole lot better and the cough was subsiding slowly. 

“Hey, what happened to you?” asked Zeke the second that I touched my ass down on the bench next to him. I looked longingly at the tall glass of Amity-brewed beer that he was sipping from, but Gail had warned me to stay away from alcohol or I’d probably pass out within seconds because of the painkillers she’d prescribed me. 

For the first time since I’d gotten pushed down a flight of stairs in the Pit, I saw Zeke looking genuinely worried – his dark eyebrows were furrowed and his lips were twisted into a frown. The question of whether Coulter had something to do with this was implied. 

“Coulter and I were patrolling near the kitchens,” I said. I’d made up this lie together with Four and had him tell Coulter so that we wouldn’t tell different versions. “I fell, twisted my ankle and kind of accidentally stuck my arm into the fire. It was pretty gnarly, but Coulter carried me to the infirmary. It was pretty nice of him.” I was proud to say that I hadn’t interrupted myself to cough at any point. 

Zeke nodded, not entirely convinced, but went on munching happily on his burger. I decided that I’d had enough of thinking or talking of my injuries after suffering Gail’s ministrations for the better part of the day and turned to Four, who was picking listlessly at a serving of vegetable gunk. 

“Hey, what are the initiates like? Are they pathetic little weasels like the ones last year or did anyone actually make the jump without crying?” I asked, trying a very hesitant and painful smile. 

Four understood what I was trying to do. “They’re pretty pathetic,” he said, “We have the usual self-important Candor brats, the nosy Erudites and even one mopey little Amity. It’s pretty standard.” I nodded. 

“Anyone with potential?” 

Four laughed, but his eyes remained grim. “Not one splash,” he said, and only now did I notice that everyone at the table to our right had stopped short, listening in on our conversation. Well, I decided, it was not my problem if the initiates had the audacity to try and sit next to their instructor to hear intel at dinner. No one would spoon-feed them here in Dauntless. 

It was a pretty good night, all things considered – I retired early, though. Four insisted on accompanying me to my apartment and fell asleep on the floor once again while I lay awake in my bed, poring over what had happened today. What on earth was going on in this faction?

Quietly, I went over what I knew. Ina and the unknown man. Maybe they were distributing some type of drug? In one of the pre-war novels I’d read, there was a story about what they used to call a ‘drug ring’, selling amphetamines (which I assumed were serums meant to excite you) and trading in all things illegal. Once, I’d even read a story where young women were traded for sums of money. 

Sometimes, I was really glad that our society had evolved into this. That now, we all knew our places. We all knew where we were supposed to be. We were all perfectly equipped for our role in this city. I was a Control Room officer, I was there to survey the cameras and see to it that no one was hurting anyone else (at least not too badly). Eric Coulter was a leader, making decisions in the best interest of all of us. Max was his superior, and Craven was Max’s superior. It was all clearly established. There was no moment where people weren’t fully aware of what they were supposed to do. No one was in a position that they didn’t understand; we were all ranked in initiation according to our aptitude; and we had the chance of working our way upwards (if we hadn’t ranked the lowest). 

Back then, before the factions, it had all been chaos. People had roamed around like idiots, unsure of what they had even been doing. They’d gone to college, indebting themselves massively and learning things that they wouldn’t need, and then did jobs that hadn’t been useful for society at all. 

No, I decided. I was glad that I lived in this society. 

Everyone was taken care of, everyone was provided for. 

I fell asleep eventually, to the sound of Four’s even snoring. My dreams were vivid and full of fire; everything was orange. The orange flames licked at me and chased me into the following day.

~

Surprisingly, I didn’t wake up the loud blaring of an alarm clock. I woke up because the sun was tickling my toes, warming them gently instead of abruptly. I jerked away at first, fearing more fire – flashes of my red dream reared up behind my lids – but when there was no pain in the heated touch, I relaxed, quietly enjoying it. I took a deep breath, revelling in the feeling of warmth and comfort. No one was there to wake me up; no one was there to tell me that I’d have to do something. This was nice. 

Coulter had stopped at our table during dinner the night before, telling me that I wouldn’t have to come in to work for the rest of the week, and I was sincerely glad for the relief. He promised not to follow the case any further without me (mainly because he was unable to as he didn’t know where the entrance to the secret den was) and told me to rest. It was probably the closest to being an normal person with actual feelings that Eric Coulter could ever get. 

However, the sudden advent of free time confused and excited me in equal parts. I hadn’t really had a full day off (other than Sundays) for the last year. In Dauntless, working was the standard. We didn’t stop working at any point, mainly because without work, the system would break down. What was I to do? Read? 

For the first four days, I did just that. I went through my collection of books and read one, then another and another until I’d piled up seven books beside my bed. When I’d arrived at the epilogue of the eighth one – a terrible Amity romance novel – I decided that it was time to get out of bed and maybe start to work out again. 

Gail had given me the all-clear to move and put some strain on my body (within reason) because my ankle was basically healed, though my arm would probably take another two weeks to be completely fine. Still, I went down to the training room, ran a few miles and finally decided to do some practice drills.

That, however, tired me out quickly and eventually, I found myself a little lightheaded, sitting down on the floor and staring at the mocking face of some Erudite official taped to one of the punching bags. This was something people tended to do here quite often – just let out their anger and aggressions, try to push them out through the tiny channel of relatively victimless violence. 

My arms were tired from being held up for so long and sweat burned the still-sore burn marks adorning my arm. The practice drills probably hadn’t been my best idea, but physical exercise had always helped clear my mind. Over the past few days, I’d been trying desperately to find some answer to the question of what on earth Ina and her evil compatriots were trying to do. I’d come to the conclusion that the vials had to contain some type of illegal serum (or maybe a stolen one) and the two of them planned to distribute them. Maybe they were in the process of recruiting what had been known as ‘dealers’ in the world before the war. I’d figure this out if it was going to be the last thing I did. 

“What are you doing here?” asked a stern voice. It moved from above me to beside me as a heavy body dropped down next to me. I didn’t turn my head to see who it was, I’d recognise that tone anywhere. 

“I’m fine, Thirty-One,” I said, although my cracking voice betrayed me. “I just needed to get out of my apartment.” I drew in a deep breath through my nose. “How did you find me?” 

“Zeke tipped me off. He saw you killing yourself punching some bags.” He sighed. “Listen, Rae. I get it. You’re restless. You’re trying to clear your head. Just…try to be a little more careful. I know you got away from that fire practically unharmed, but maybe you won’t be so lucky next time.” 

I nodded. “I know, Fifteen. I just really need to crack this case.” 

He nodded as well, agreeing wordlessly. For a few moments, we sat there, looking ahead at the face of one of the Erudite officials, Carl Sharp, smiling at us with his cynical, white-toothed grin. Four was absolutely right, to be honest. I couldn’t keep doing this, but I had grown so completely restless staring at the concrete ceiling of my room that my feet had carried me down here on their own accord. I didn’t need to explain it to Four, though. He understood. 

“Come on, Sunshine,” he said finally, getting up and patting himself off. Dust swirled under his hands, tiny grey specks dancing in the sliver of sunlight that snuck in through the high windows. 

“Where to?” 

He smiled meanly. “To meet the initiates.” 

I took his hand, letting him pull me into a standing position. The two of us, best friends, almost siblings – we moved through the vast training room until we reached the door. 

“Who’d you leave them with, anyway? I hope they’re not alone.” 

The smile on his face grew even more amused and devious. “Oh, they’re not alone.” 

He opened the door for me. “They’re with Eric.”


	6. A Kiss With a Fist Is Better Than None

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi everyone! 
> 
> Shit is going down in this chapter, be prepared.  
> Anyway, thank you all so much for reading and commenting and leaving kudos, you're all so amazing. It's really heartwarming to see people actually give a crap about this story.   
> I really hope you enjoy reading this chapter as much as I enjoyed writing it!   
> Have a wonderful day!   
> M
> 
> Title is taken from "Kiss With a Fist" by Florence + the Machine

“I don’t know what language I’m speaking right now, but you obviously don’t understand a word I’m saying.” Oh, holy cow. This would be good. “You’re doing everything wrong that you possible could, initiate. What is that _stance_? You look pathetic.” 

Coulter pushed the poor kid around a little under the guise of adjusting his stance. It was more than a little comedic to watch, how the initiate was being thrown around like a rag doll. He was a thin, tall guy with acne scars all over his face and two front teeth that jutted out just a little more than they strictly had to. I could tell that he was an Erudite even from ten feet away. Poor transfer. He’d probably done nothing to deserve this. 

“Stiff!” Coulter barked suddenly, spotting Four and me making our way through the door. “This is the fifth day you are training them! Can you tell me why this _Nose_ is unable to punch a bag right?” 

It was Saturday already? Holy shit, time was running out. My week off had gone by so fast, it was ridiculous. Stretching out my arm, I could feel that the burn was basically already healed; it was not even scabbed over anymore, but the skin was fresh and thin and tender. 

“And didn’t I tell you that there are no _pets_ allowed in the training rooms?” he tacked on, giving me a mean look. I rolled my eyes at him; what a douchebag. 

Four went to say something, opening his mouth with his jaw visibly tensed, the tendons of his neck sticking out – but I was quicker than him. Very unfortunately so. 

“I also thought this rule extended to not allowing _apes_ in the compound, yet here you stand. I guess the leadership is going lax in their old age.”

Coulter’s mouth opened, but no sounds came out. A vein popped out of his neck, and, sure enough, a second one slowly rose from his reddened forehead. Oh, wonderful. He was going to be a barrel of laughs today. 

“I could have you stripped and whipped for insubordination, Harper,” he threatened. 

I laughed, full of mirth and amusement. This was amazing. Maybe that was what had been missing from me that past couple days. Riling Coulter up surely was making me feel a whole lot better about myself. “You’d like that, wouldn’t you?” 

He took a threatening step closer – luckily, I was almost as tall as he was. I could meet this guy on his own eye level. I was not going to back down like he thought I was going to. I was not going to give him the satisfaction. He probably thought I was weak because I was a woman and I fully intended to prove to him just how dead-wrong he was. 

It looked like he was about to say something, really quietly (Eric Coulter did not need to yell), but we were interrupted by a chirpy voice that belonged to a chicken-chested Erudite transfer.

“So, wait – we just punch something and then we punch each other on Monday? Without further instruction? Could we maybe,” his eyes flickered up and down my body and my fingers instinctively curled into a fist, “get a demonstration of a fight?” 

I groaned. I knew a challenge when I heard one. That was the dumbest thing about Dauntless: The endless challenging. This kid seemed to know the drill very well, he’d fit in here perfectly. 

Challenges, in Dauntless, were a little different from what they had been like in Candor. Back then, it was like a joke, you know, you said to someone ‘I dare you to tell that guy he looks like a donkey without ears’ and you either didn’t do it or you did. No real consequences except donkey-boy’s feelings. Here, it was more serious. If someone challenged you to do something – which this initiate was doing right now – you couldn’t back down. And right now, he was challenging me and the other two bags of sunshine to fight one another, and if we didn’t do it, we’d lose his respect. And probably that of all other transfers present. The worst part was that he’d looked at me directly when speaking his challenge, so it all came down to me. I was the direct receiver. If I didn’t do this, I’d probably have to live factionless forever because turning down a challenge from an _initiate_ was the most mortifying, shameful thing anyone could ever do in Dauntless (rightly so, these initiates were pathetic). 

_Fuck._

Sadly, the downside of our faction was that it still hadn’t moved very far past the stupid testosterone-fuelled values of a Stone Age community.   
I’d just have to get this over with quickly. “Let’s go, Fifty,” I said, shrugging off my jacket. I tore a new pack of bandages out of my pocket, starting to wrap up my knuckles. Four groaned, nodding to show he’d understood me and started taking his jacket off as well. I knew he’d take it easy on me and refrain from using my injuries to his advantage. This was probably going to be terrible, despite the fact that I’d healed almost all the way in the past couple days. But Four wasn’t an unfair fighter, he knew when to stop. However, luck was not exactly smiling down on me here. 

“If you don’t mind,” said Coulter, “I’d _love_ to demonstrate with the little chihuahua here.” 

The blood all but froze in my veins. What? Why? No! Coulter would probably beat me within an inch of my life. Flashbacks from the beating I’d gotten from him during initiations hit me full-force. 

This was how I would die. Holy shit. The moment had finally come, and I hadn’t even had time to prepare for it. 

This idiotic transfer asshole had the nerve to look self-satisfied, grinning right at me, the stupid piece of dog shit. I should’ve swung out at him instead. Given him the demonstration of a lifetime. 

Four looked like he wanted to say something, but his hands were tied. He couldn’t do anything without digging my grave for me, and to be honest, I’d rather die fighting Eric Coulter than to lose these stupid children’s respect. Fucking ridiculous. 

I growled at him wordlessly and he seemed to catch my drift, stepping back and furrowing his brow. 

While Coulter, looking merry, prepared himself for the fight by putting on a pair of stupid-looking kickboxing gloves and taking off his combat boots, I saw Four lead the initiates over to the mat where our fight would take place. When the others weren’t looking at him, he pulled the offending initiate – apparently, his name was Conner – aside and whispered very intently, probably threatening the boy’s life if he did something that stupid ever again.

This was just the _shittiest_ day of my life. Getting beaten to death by none other than Eric Coulter who had been out for my blood since the second that Max had offered me a leader training spot (he was convinced that I was being groomed to take over his job, which was absolutely ludicrous; I had no intention of becoming a brooding leader and hanging out with these chauvinistic pigs). 

Finally, Coulter and I took our places in the ring while Four was trying to give him a run for his money with the menacing scowl on his face.   
I gulped when I saw the muscles ripple beneath the leader’s shirt as he brought them up over his head to stretch. 

“Scared, Harper?” he asked with a mean smile on his face. 

_I’ll bash your fucking skull in._

Instead of saying something to rile him up, I cracked my knuckles and brought my arms up to guard my face. I knew that was what he’d go for first – Coulter didn’t really give you any chance to counter his attacks. He didn’t have to fight dirty because he had the advantage of strength, broadness and weight on his side. So, the only way I could beat this man was by using his strength against himself, which was just as difficult seeing as he was big, but not hunky enough to be slowed down noticeably by his own muscles. 

“Watch carefully, kids,” he said. His voice was as quiet as it could go, but everyone was listening.

Then he sprang at me like a fucking tank rattling over a flower. I managed to scrape out of the way only barely, immediately recovering and aiming a kick to his kidneys. My barely-healed ankle shrieked in pain, but I ignored it. I got one hit more hit with my fist in before he recovered, crouching down and diving for my core, trying to throw me off my feet. 

When my head hit the mat with a _thump_ , I raised my hands quickly to free them from his grasp and punched him on the temple, successfully knocking him off balance. I probably could’ve gone for the ear, but I wasn’t trying to deal any serious damage; this was just a practice fight, after all. The hit, though, still gave me the chance to push him halfway off me and wrap my legs around his neck, flipping us over. However, before I got to have my fist connect with that _stupid, smirking mouth_ , Coulter all but folded himself in half with surprising flexibility for a man of his burly build and somehow managed to wrench himself into a kneeling position, leaving me to be pushed against the ground with my legs still choking him. I was holding on for dear life. 

His steely grey gaze met mine and so help me God, I wasn’t going to die like this. Fucking Eric Coulter was not going to get the better of me right now. 

Freeing my right leg, I kneed him in the face and rolled away from his body, quickly trying to scramble into a standing position, but I couldn’t get my feet underneath myself – because he was holding on to my ankle. Fuck. 

Fuck, I was done for. He’d officially done the worst thing anyone could do in this situation: Taking advantage of my injury. He knew, he _fucking knew_ that I’d sprained my ankle when running from a fire, but he didn’t hesitate to use it against me. It was sickening. 

A few brutal punches to my face later, I was dizzy and nauseous, but I still hadn’t given up. If anything, I was at least going to let the guy go home with the _worst_ bruise on his face. 

In a burst of surprising strength, I ducked away from his next punch, which knocked him off balance for a few seconds. Sensing my advantage, I threw my entire body forwards, knocking my shoulder into his groin. I could hear a sharp intake of breath and for a few seconds, we didn’t move, me still crouching at his feet and Coulter wheezing in large gulps of air. 

When I looked up, I saw nothing but his bruised face, red with rage and pain. Fuck, fuck, fuck. This was my death sentence. While I was still staring at him, wide-eyes and terrified, I basically let his large, bear-like paw come down upon me and grip my hair, _hard_. 

“You’re gonna pull my hair like a little bitch, Coulter?” I pressed out. Four had told me once during initiation that my stupid Candor mouth would probably get me killed in Dauntless at some point – but I hadn’t known that today was going to be that day. That still didn’t keep me from carrying on. “Real fair.” 

“I’m not the bitch; look who’s kneeling at my feet,” he hissed, and another fist hit my cheekbone and, in the periphery, my nose. Blood spurted all over my face and Coulter’s first. Desperately, I swung my legs out from under me and tried to hit the knee that I knew he’d injured two months ago in a training fight with his buddy Higgins – it was dirty hit, I knew – but he chose that exact moment to come down on me, pinning me to the floor and holding on to my hands. 

“You gonna tap out, little doggie?” he asked cruelly. 

In a last, desperate attempt to beat him, I let my body go slack, letting him believe that he’d beaten me – and then I tried one last pathetic hit to his jaw. My fist made connection, a loud _thwack_ resounded off the walls. The hit turned out to not be so pathetic after all, because it caught Coulter off guard, making him lose his balance and sent him scrambling down next to me. 

“That the tap you were waiting for?” I said innocently and quickly got off the floor. 

Coulter looked like he was half-fuming and half-amused, the vein on his neck throbbing while his forehead remained smooth and expressionless. 

“She barks, and she bites. Interesting,” he said. 

When I looked back at the initiates, they were all staring wide-eyed-and-stupid at the two of us. Blood trickled down my temple and out of my nose. There was a good chance that my ankle was going to bruise from where Coulter had encased it in his iron grip. It was probably not the best idea to put any weight on it as it was still a little sore from my injury during the fire, but at that point, I couldn’t have cared less. I was not going to show one of these little bedwetters that I was hurting. 

“You go clean yourself up, I’ll handle this,” said Four. He looked positively furious and I was almost entirely sure that he’d given Coulter a glare that could probably make ice melt when I hadn’t been looking, but I couldn’t have been more grateful for the guy at that moment. 

I nodded to him and made my way out of the training room with Coulter seemingly close to me. 

Before I passed the initiates entirely, however, I put a bloody hand on Conner’s shoulder, leaving a dark red handprint on his black training shirt. I leaned closer; so close that he looked like he was about to flinch away any moment. I probably smelt of blood and sweat. 

“Let this be a word of warning, initiate,” I said, so quiet that no one else could hear, “If you ever try to challenge me again, I’ll fight _you_.” In a sudden spurt of cruelty, I raised my hand to tap his cheek lightly, leaving more blood on his baby-soft skin. 

All colour drained from his eyes as he regarded me. 

Good. 

Outside of the training room, I had to lean against the wall and clutch my head for a moment. I was extremely dizzy. Coulter walked past me without sparing me a second look, but I wasn’t going to let him get away that easily. 

“You know what, Coulter? I think it’s really sad that you constantly feel the need to show everyone that your dick is the longest. I don’t want your fucking job, I’m no competition, and neither is Four. So you can stop this idiotic pissing contest or I _will_ make you regret it.” 

He turned around really slowly, staring me down. He really had glaring down to a science. Ugh. 

“Was that a threat, Harper?” 

I ground my teeth together, tasting blood. “Yes, Coulter. It was. And if I was you, I’d keep this chip on my shoulder to myself. Because we’re all getting pretty sick of your bitching.” 

“I wasn’t doing this,” he said, taking a threatening step toward me, “to get back at you. I was trying to help you, against my better judgement, you insolent child.” 

I blinked in confusion. “Helping me? By beating me to a pulp?” I was so bewildered that I forgot to be offended by his insult. 

Coulter suddenly sighed, like he was just tired of everyone’s shit. Tension left his body like air sizzling out of a balloon. Now, he wasn’t the angry, tough Dauntless leader I’d fought moments ago but an exhausted twenty-two-year old man just trying to do his job. “Do you think those kids would’ve respected you if they’d seen the Stiff tiptoe around you like he was afraid you’d break in half? Come on, Harper, not even you can be that daft.” 

I stared for a few moments, at his blank expression. He had done this…to help me? To be honest, his argumentation was sound. Four probably would’ve let me win, which either would’ve seriously damaged his authority or made me seem like a complete wuss who couldn’t handle a fight and begged their friends to take it easy on them. The kids didn’t know that I’d been running from a fire on Monday, and teenagers are, evidently, the cruellest beings ever. 

As much as it pained me to admit it, Coulter had actually done a pretty smart thing. However, my moment of affection didn’t really last when my gaze snapped back to his face to find an expression only a few evil glints in his eye short of a leer. He’d recovered quickly, I’ll give him that. 

“Or maybe,” he said, taking another step toward me. I was pressed against the wall, painfully reminded of last week when he’d all but given me a concussion outside of Max’s office. “I just enjoy fighting with you.”


	7. Baby, I'm Drunk off the Thought of You

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello everyone! 
> 
> Sorry that it took me so long to update, I'm super busy with uni at the moment. But thank you so much for the comments that I received on the last chapter; and thank you all for reading my story! I really hope you're enjoying it! 
> 
> Have fun with this chapter where we get some more Four-Rae fluff - I know the story has been really heavy on their relationship so far and I apologise, I just don't want to make it only about her and Eric. I don't think I can pull off a story that is just romance, I'm definitely not a good enough writer for that. I hope you like the chapter anyway, I promise there's some Rae-Eric action coming soon :) 
> 
> Have a wonderful week,  
> M

That night, Four took me out for a drink in lieu of an apology. I mean, sure, if I was him I’d probably feel bad too; after all he had let his best friend get their ass handed to them by a man twice their size and then watched said man ridicule them in front of a bunch of stupid diaper-wearing initiates. A more rational voice in the back of my head that I’d lovingly dubbed ‘the Erudite in me’ supplied helpfully that if Four had stepped in, I would probably be in a lot more trouble right now. I mean, these kids were cruel. They probably would’ve lost all their respect, and rightly so, if I had another person protect me like I needed someone to hold my hand. And, an even meaner Erudite in the back of my skull whispered, Coulter had pretty much saved my sorry ass from lifelong ridicule. 

Either way, Four and I were sitting at a bar in the Pit and he was doing the friendliest version of brooding that he could muster up while I was chatting mindlessly about faction gossip. Apparently, there had been an instance of teen pregnancy in Amity (unsurprising with these hippies, if you ask me) and a few Candors had been spotted smoking marihuana behind the bleachers at school. I was jealous of them. I’d really give anything for some substance that could make me feel a little less like I’d been run over by a tank. Stupid fucking Eric Coulter. I hated him even more when he did something vaguely nice. 

“You know,” Four interrupted me. I had been telling him about how the Abnegation leader, Marcus Eaton, had been accused of abusing his son _again_ and it had finally been enough for Candor to open an investigation into the matter (which was rendered moot the second they realized that the Eaton son was lost somewhere in the faction system, having taken up a new name years ago). “I’m really sorry about this. But do you ever think that maybe you should stop trying to rile Eric up as much as you can? I mean, he was already nuts and beating you that hard was not necessary at all, but these comments were uncalled for. You’re only going to make it worse for yourself.” 

“And that is why I’ll never shut up.” I took a huge sip of my beer (I’d thrown out the painkillers in exchange for it, deciding that being hooked on them for four days had been enough). Four raised an eyebrow, but I simply glared back. “I’ll never stop riling him up because I’m never going to be quiet to make things better for myself. I left Candor because I felt like I was trapped within this stupid society of enforced justice in every tiny little matter, but to be honest, I’ve started missing it. In this place, survival of the fittest is the rule and that’s just not something I can agree with. I’ll never be quiet just so that I can have a ‘better life’ or some shit. Even if Coulter kills me at some point.” 

Four nodded thoughtfully. He didn’t have a reply to that, so I took it as a sign of him accepting my choice. I knew that he didn’t mean to offend me, quite the other way around. Four was probably the best friend that I’d ever had. He just cared so much about me and sometimes, that showed in odd and overbearing ways, but truly, he was only looking out for me. Not in a condescending, patriarchal way – he definitely didn’t think that I was weak because I was a woman – but like a brother who, for the most part, didn’t judge me. 

Zeke joined us only a few hours later, sitting down next to me and, after worrying a little bit at how completely beaten I looked and asking millions of questions about what had happened, he laughed at me for a long, long time. I didn’t really mind. It felt like a small morsel of normality during a day that had otherwise been completely insane. 

“You know,” said Zeke. “The funny thing is that I’ve only ever seen Coulter pick on a single person like this before, and she was his girlfriend a week later-” 

Four interrupted him with a rough noise. It was wedged somewhere between a grunt and a snarl, and Zeke shut himself up, raising his hands in a defensive posture. 

“I was just saying.” 

“Shut up, Zeke.” Four took another large gulp of his beer and I decided not to push the subject – if he wasn’t willing to talk about it, it probably wasn’t worth prodding. Although the thought of Eric Coulter having a girlfriend was hilarious in my mind, I didn’t want to annoy Four by pressing for an answer. 

Four, in the meantime, was doing this thing that he always did when he was thoroughly uncomfortable: fiddling with everything in his reach. There were some coasters made out of rectangular recycled cardboard sheets on the table, and he was picking his apart, drawing some suspicious looks from the girl tending the bar. It was frowned upon to waste resources in our day and age – not like pre-war, when everything had been disposable. 

“Listen, guys,” he said. He was biting his lip continuously. “I need to tell you something.” 

I raised my eyebrows. This was bound to be interesting. 

“So, you guys know the girl that works in Tori’s tattoo shop, right?” 

I put down the glass of beer that I was about to take a sip from. I could see Zeke doing the same thing across from, perking up at the mention of the word ‘girl’. This was even better than expected. Four? Talking to women? Stranger things had happened, but let me tell you, not many. 

“Tris Prior,” supplied Zeke. He looked about as excited as I was. 

“Yeah,” confirmed Four. 

I hardly knew anything about Tris Prior – she was a thin, quiet transfer from Abnegation. She’d been in the faction for three years now, so she was nineteen and seemed like a nice girl. I’d been there to see her completely destroy her fear landscape. She finished in the first spot and still decided to become a tattoo artist, which I could honestly understand. Sometimes, Dauntless politics were a little much and the ones finishing in top spots went to work mundane, quiet jobs for the rests of their lives. I wasn’t any different, to be honest. I’d finished first as well and now I was spending my days as a glorified security guard. Well, until the great Happening over a week ago. 

“So, I’m going to ask her out tomorrow.” 

_What?!_ Four – asking someone out? How scandalous! 

Let me just recap quickly: I’d known Four since my initiation. That had happened four years ago; and we’d been best friends since. In all that time, I’d only seen him approach two girls. One of them was a pretty blond security guard and she’d laughed at him when he’d tried to ask her out. The other one was a strong brown-haired computer technician who worked with Lauren and she’d tried to push him to sleep with her on the first date, so he all but fled from her. Zeke had told me that Four had had a girlfriend at seventeen, before I’d come to the faction, and that it had ended spectacularly badly with her. Therefore, Zeke and I were probably a tad too protective of our friend. 

But to us, it was a fact as clear as day: Four was kind, loyal, strong and loving and it was hard to find someone who was deserving of such a man. 

“That’s great!” I exclaimed, too loudly. A few heads turned. “Sorry,” I said a little more quietly. “This is amazing, I’m excited for you.” 

We decided to get another round to celebrate, and the one beer that Four had promised me quickly turned into a second, and a third. After downing the last bit of my fourth glass, I became acutely aware of the fact that I hadn’t eaten a whole lot tonight and that the world had suddenly started tilting a little. At some point, our little group had gotten bigger and now Lauren, Shauna, Uriah and a few others from Uriah’s initiation class, including Lauren’s little sister, had joined us. However, as it was nearing twelve o’clock and I felt a wonderful black eye blooming on my face, I yawned demonstratively a few times and eventually attempted to excuse myself. 

“You know, guys, this is fun and all, but I should probably turn in. I’m still feeling a little rough from the very unsexy beating that I got today.” This earned me a few laughs from the table. Even Shauna gave me a tentative smile, and I had to fight really hard not to look a little sour at the thought of her putting a protective arm around her boyfriend at the sight of me. It wasn’t my place to be mad at her for this, I told myself. It was becoming a mantra by now. She had every right to be jealous of me as I spent a substantial chunk of Zeke’s free time with him. Not as much as before they got together, but still a lot.

“Don’t be a little bitch, Rae. One more beer,” Lauren yelled. She gave me a bright smile. “Tomorrow is Sunday, you’ll have plenty of time to sleep it off. Four agrees, doesn’t he?” 

“Yeah, right.” I looked over at Four, who was currently trying very hard not to make too-large puppy eyes at Tris Prior, his future paramour. She was sitting at the next table with her boring, loud friend Christina, having arrived sometime after our conversation about her, and it was obvious that he was itching to go over there and strike up a conversation. The whole production was equal parts pathetic and adorable – to be frank, every time I looked at him, I was glad that I was not a lovesick puppy with my eyes bulging out every time they fell upon that _special someone_. I mean sure, I was happy for Four, but come on. It was getting a little ridiculous. “Eleven here doesn’t look like he’s got eyes for anything other than his beloved right now. Great spot for pining, I get it, Seventy-Three.” I winked at him and marvelled at the wonderful shade of red that his ears were tipped in. 

I earned a few bouts of laughter for the comment, even from Four, who was obviously trying to be mad at me but failed miserably when his eyes once again fell on Tris Prior’s slim figure. 

“Oh, don’t get your panties in a twist, Sunshine. Have another,” said Zeke, waving over the waitress and ordering more beer for everyone. He was so paying for that round. It wasn’t like I didn’t have any points to spare – there _were_ certain fiscal benefits that came from working in the Control Room – but if the guy wanted to earn the right to make fun of me, he had to pay for it. 

We carried on laughing and drinking for another good ten minutes until I had had enough of Four sitting there, completely absent-minded and staring like a dumbstruck idiot. On a whim, I turned around, scanning the crowded room for Tris Prior and her friend. I was sure she was still there, or else Four probably would’ve made an effort to wipe the drool from his mouth. 

“Hey! Hey, Tori’s slave over there! Tris!” I exclaimed, trying to draw attention to myself. 

She turned around, looking visibly irritated that someone was interrupting her conversation with her friend. What was that girl’s name again? Carolina? Camilla? I huffed. 

“Did you two wanna come over here? We still have a couple spots!” 

The two women, looking thoroughly puzzled, gathered their drinks nonetheless and moved over to our table. When I turned back to Four, he was giving me a look that could’ve dismembered any person that was less used to his comportment. 

“Eh, hi?” said Tris. 

“Well, hello girls,” I said with a friendly smile. A part of me wondered what Four would want with someone who was just so dreadfully _boring_ – but then I remembered that boring was probably comforting to him, and he had enough on his hands with me as his best friend. 

“I’m Rae Harper, and this is Zeke Pedrad; Lauren, Shauna, Uriah – you know him right? Your class?” The two of them nodded. “Right. And you probably know Sixty-Nine over there.” I gave my friend a shit-eating grin as he scrambled to paste a friendlier expression onto his face. It was hilarious. 

“Hi, this is Christina, and apparently you already know who I am.” Tris’s tone wasn’t sour by any stretch of the imagination, and I found myself liking her against all expectations. Christina (right, that was her name) remained dubious and regarded me with a badly-concealed scowl on her face. Well, you can’t win ‘em all. 

Feeling satisfied with myself at having played matchmaker successfully, I stayed long enough to make sure that Four wasn’t leaving and had immersed the girl of his dreams in a conversation. It was well into the night when I got up and left, taking Zeke, Shauna and Lauren with me. When we reached a junction, we had to separate as I had an apartment in the guarded wing where most of the leaders lived. 

Whistling merrily, I made my way down the corridor, nodding at the guards that I saw and finally halting in front of my door. However, when it came to jamming the key into the lock, I sort of noticed just how drunk I truly was as I suddenly found it almost impossible to handle something so small and delicate in my hands. They felt huge out of nowhere. 

“I hope you’ll be awake and ready for work on Monday.” 

Frozen on the spot, I turned. 

Come on, come on, come the fuck _on_. It was enough that I had to see the guy almost nine hours a day during work starting Monday, but now he was here, too? I mean, the Erudite part of my brain helpfully supplied that he probably lived somewhere near here, but still. For the love of God, what were the odds that we’d meet just now? Wasn’t he supposed to be in his bed, counting mutilated sheep? 

And wasn’t it enough that he’d humiliated me today (by saving me from total humiliation)? Why, oh why, must fate forsake me so? 

“Sure, party pooper. I wouldn’t dare be late and rain on your parade,” I told Coulter, rolling my eyes. Rationally, it was probably good that the lights were so low. Hopefully he hadn’t seen my little gesture of defiance. However, it was not quite dim enough to conceal the discoloration of the side of Coulter’s face where my final punch had struck him. His sharp cheekbone was purple-blue-green; it was almost beautiful. 

As if hearing my thoughts, Coulter said darkly, “Harper, do you want me to give you another black eye?” He took a threatening step towards me. 

“Oh shut up, you oaf.” The words came out sounding a little more slurred than I’d expected them to. If I was sober, I probably wouldn’t have called him an oaf. Or told him to shut up, for that matter. 

This didn’t go by unnoticed by Coulter: One of his thick eyebrows jerked up. “Are you _drunk_ , Harper?” he asked. There was a certain tone in his voice, and I didn’t like it at all. Because it was an absolutely delighted note that I’d only ever heard when he was about to do something truly horrible. 

“Leave me alone, Coulter,” I grunted. My brain was screaming at me to let it go and try to ram the key into the lock so that I could flee from this terrible scene – but for some reason, I couldn’t. Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck. I stumbled a little, leaning against the doorframe for support. How utterly humiliating. 

“Oh, for fuck’s sake,” said Coulter, grabbing the key from my hands and thrusting it into the lock. 

The only thing that my drunken mind could really supply was that he had really sexy hands. Moreover, the hands were attached to a very sexy body. When I was sober, my rational thinking stopped me from letting this notion into my mind, but Coulter looked absolutely striking in Dauntless black. His arms were thick, muscled, _strong_ \- Thank you, brain. That’ll be all for the day. 

After he had unlocked the door for me, Coulter tore the key out of the lock and all but threw it at me while I started dumbly back. 

“If you don’t manage to be on your feet by Monday, I will beat your ass all the way to the other end of the globe.” 

That was the last thing he said, then he turned around and took off down the corridor. 

“I’ll hold you to it, asshole!” I yelled, feeling the childish need to have the last word.


	8. Little Talks

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi everyone! 
> 
> I'm so sorry it took me so long to update and that this chapter is kind of shitty, but I've been under a lot of stress from uni recently and it'll only get better after exam season, so at the beginning of July. I hope you enjoy this chapter anyway, even though it's kind of an exposition machine, and have a wonderful week! 
> 
> M

“Are you sure that we’re in the right place?”

I groaned. This was the nineteenth time that Coulter had asked me that in the past thirty minutes. And yes, I’d counted. I’d actually been keeping score so that I could fling it at him at a later point when I needed a compelling argument as to why he was a distrustful stickler for details. The worst part was that he was doing all of this to psych me out, no other reason. All he wanted to do was to make me so frazzled that I’d freak out over some little detail and he could look like the stoic hero in the end. 

The worst part was that it was working so, so incredibly well. 

There was an unquestionable sense of nausea creeping through my stomach and I felt somewhat shaky as I stood. I was both very hung over and still quite drunk seeing as I had decided yesterday to remedy my terrible headache by drinking even more with Zeke later in the evening. The two of us had gone home sufficiently drunk while Four was purportedly on a date with Tris, and here I was. I didn’t even know what was worse, the hangover or the feeling of intoxication not truly leaving my stomach. Actually, no – the worst thing was that I’d worked out for three hours in the morning, probably sweating out pure vodka. 

I felt a little fuzzy, like there was a blanket wrapped around my head. And my thighs hurt like a bitch. 

“We’re close, Coulter,” I said simply and kept walking, albeit a little slower than before. The best way to work against this insufferable bastard was probably to make this boring and uneventful but proving that I was right at the end of it. 

Eventually, however, I could stall no longer and led him to the very door I’d emerged through on Monday. It was blackened at the corners, like the fire had tried to seep through the cracks but hadn’t quite managed. After a few moments of silent, brooding contemplation, Coulter shouldered through the door, breaking it down without any further ado. The corridor looked the same as on Monday – as did the huge hall. It was filled with the charred remains of tables and boxes. When I went to take a look at the glass vials, however, I found that there was nothing left of them. It was suspicious. I checked more and more boxes, but nothing seemed to contain a single ounce of the contraband they’d been trying to liquidate. Which was interesting – seeing as I’d only just looked up the temperature it took to make glass melt and a regular fire wouldn’t do that. 

My eyes widened. 

“Coulter,” I said, looking around hurriedly. My obvious state or alarm seemed to freak him out as well. 

“What?” he asked, voice barely above a whisper. 

“Someone wiped this place clean. There used to be glass vials in these boxes,” I said, repeating what I’d already told him on the way here. He’d been quite incredulous toward my story, but now he seemed to be more trusting. Maybe because he’d realized that I hadn’t lied when I told him about this place.

He wordlessly reached for the gun that was strapped to his side. I mirrored his actions – I sure as hell wasn’t going to let something like last Monday happen again. 

Nodding at each other to acknowledge that we were on the same page, we turned our backs to one another, very slowly making our way to the other corridor. Not the one we’d come through, but the one I’d seen Ina and her partner escape into. We started a slow, tactical saunter toward the corridor and into the darkness of it. I was contemplating to turn on the flashlight I’d brought with me as well but decided against it. No need to wave a signal flag above us to alert someone of our presence prematurely. 

Putting one foot in front of the other, I moved myself very slowly through the corridor, Coulter behind me. Nothing. No noise. No breath. I could only hear myself and the heavy footsteps behind me. For some reason, though, they were soothing, like I knew there was someone covering my back.   
It didn’t take long for us to reach the first corner and round it, slowly. There was a light at the end of the tunnel yet again, but it wasn’t quite as far away as I would’ve expected it – a meagre ten feet away from me, standing tall, was a door like the one that had led me into freedom during the fire. However, it was not sealed shut, not locked. It was cracked open, a little bit of light seeping through. The light wasn’t natural, though. 

Maybe there was someone still in there? Coulter and I moved slowly, deliberately. Any wrong step could spook the person on the other end of the door. Any wrong step could lead to the rest of our leads being destroyed. With a nod to him, I suddenly threw my weight against the door, crashing it open and securing the perimeter with my eyes - and all I saw were charred, dark traces of paper. They were spread all over the room, like someone had left everything in here in a hurry and ran away from the fire that had eventually been their doom. After the initial shock, I looked around a little. 

We were in an office. It wasn’t a very large room, but it was enough to impress those walking into it – with the burnt remains of a desk the size of a dinner table and the single pathetic chair leg behind it. 

“They wiped it, too,” I whispered, looking around the room. Everything was in ashes. Only a few tiny little notes remained, but none of them were even remotely legible as fire had eaten away at the ink so much that only very few letters were left. 

“They got here before us,” I said. 

Coulter nodded but didn’t say anything. The graveness of the situation was only just hitting him, I supposed. 

I decided to ignore him. Below my feet, the ashes gave a little _crunch_ every time I stepped on something. The charred remains of a book, a computer hard drive fried like a potato chip. This couldn’t be restored even if our best did their best. It was infuriating. The only thing these punks had left us with were a few paper scraps and the leg of a fucking office chair. 

What the hell was I going to do? 

Then I noticed something. The walls had an odd look about them. I couldn’t put my finger on it, but something here was off. I knew it. When I shared that sentiment with Coulter, he agreed with a grunt, though he couldn’t supply me with any theories either.   
It was infuriating. No matter how closely I looked at the walls, nothing seemed to give. I touched and I knocked, using the same technique that I’d used when I was trying to find the secret passage leading here from the Dauntless compound. But there was nothing. Everything sounded the same. A dark thumping knock. No hollowness. 

I looked at the layout of the room again. It was square, no windows. 

“There has to be an exit,” I said suddenly. 

“What?” 

“When I was running from the fire, I saw the two people go in here. They took this corridor and they must’ve exited through here somewhere, or else we’d be finding corpses as well.” 

Coulter raised an eyebrow. “And where do you think this magical exit is? Do you presume you can knock it out of the wall like you did last time?” 

I snorted. “Good to see you’re still an arrogant prick even though I’ve come closer to cracking this case than you ever will.” 

Now it was his turn to leer. “ _Cracking the case_? Where do you get that shit from?” 

I shrugged. “People other than Erudite can read, you know that, right?” The jab was pretty heartless and not very well thought-through, but it was the best I could come up with when I was that preoccupied with finding something that could help us. Where could they have gone? 

There was no hiding place, so they couldn’t still be here. There was also no window or door that I could see, so there had to be something else. And what was it with these goddamn walls? What was wrong with them? 

“Goddammit, Harper,” said Coulter suddenly. “It’s time for us to go, it’s almost three o’clock. I need to check in on Four with the initiates.” 

“Great,” I said humourlessly, “I hope you’ll manage to get in a good session of emotional scarring.” 

He didn’t reply, merely gave me a grim smile as he pushed past me, holstering his gun. 

“You’re just jealous that I have obligations that don’t include you.” 

Yeah, right.

~

“Tell me everything, Nineteen.” 

The look on Four’s face was entirely priceless. He was a mixture of red and green, the colour even reaching the tips of his ears (which were uncannily big, by the way). The green hue probably came from the pain of having to hold in the gory details of his date that had taken place on Sunday. 

“Do we have to do this in front of everybody?” he asked. I laughed. I didn’t know what he was on about, the only people sitting at the table currently were Zeke, Four and I.

“Are you denying your best friend the opportunity to live vicariously through you, buddy?” I asked, feigning outrage. My hand was covering my mouth as it hung wide open. He rolled his eyes at my exaggerated expression. 

“It was good,” he said, “We had a really good time. I really like her.” 

What followed was deafening silence for a few moments – disrupted by Zeke letting out a roar and raising his arms to hug Four, pressing the other’s muscled body to his own. I squeezed in between the two of them, poking both in the rips with my sharp elbows in the process, and enjoyed the hug for a few heartbeats. 

In times like these, I was meanly glad that Shauna was nowhere to be seen. She worked in a clothing store near the Pit, so she was sometimes still on the job during dinner time when she had to work a late shift. Right now, it felt like it was four years ago when it had been just the three of us. Four, Zeke and me taking on the world. The way it had been and the way it should have been for the rest of our lives. 

I wasn’t bitter about it, just realistic, I told myself. Of course, it was a lie, but no one needs to know that. Not even I do. 

“Oh, shut up,” said Four, the blush on his cheeks deepening even more. He’d now moved past the redness of a tomato and was now approaching Coulter’s “Angry Face”-colour, which was quite the impressive shade to make your face go. We enjoyed the rest of our dinner together, mocking our friend, unmarred by Shauna’s outraged presence. She thought that Zeke and I gave Four too much shit and should lay off him with the stupid jokes about Stiffs. But she also told Zeke that she liked me and always asked where I was when I wasn’t having dinner with them because I had to work late or was spending extra hours at the gym. It was all part of her façade. She wanted Zeke to believe that she was the one trying to be friends with me and not the other way around. At some point, she’d probably say that I was a bitch for always rejecting her and not making her feel like she was part of the group. 

Sometimes, I really missed Zeke. I missed all the fun times we’d had before Shauna had become a part of his life. I missed just sitting down with him and chatting for hours. 

But I wasn’t here to mope about Zeke right now. I smiled at Four, looking at his flushed ears. He was completely smitten with Tris Prior, and I honestly understood. The two of them had their origins to connect through, their home faction. They’d probably known each other back then, even, and hadn’t talked. It had to feel nice to find someone like that. Who understood you without you having to say about a million words to explain. 

For the fraction of a second, I wondered whether Four would end up like Zeke. So consumed by his love for Tris that he didn’t notice that all she saw in me was an obstacle between her and Four. And that he’d start feeling like that, too. 

The soup in front of me suddenly tasted stale and I couldn’t get a single spoonful down anymore. This wasn’t going to happen. I wasn’t going to let this come between me and my best friend, my _brother_. I needed him. 

Pushing the bowl away, I tried to plaster on a happier expression and looked back up to Four, who was regarding me wistfully.

“Hey, I was thinking of getting another tattoo,” I said, looking at my two friends. 

Four raised a questioning eyebrow. “Where on earth are you going to put it?” Zeke asked. 

Rolling my eyes, I pulled up my sleeve, uncovering a muscled, wiry arm that was – admittedly – covered in a huge tattoo for the most part. In my defence, Tori had kind of pushed me to get it. It was a pretty gigantic thing and had taken about a year to complete. 

When I’d came to her salon the first time, I’d wanted something that would show where I had come to while still also paying respect to where I had come from. So, at first, I’d just wanted to get the Candor scale in an intricate design that spanned all over my back with the arms of the scale on my own arms, winding down and down. Then I had had the great idea of letting my Divergence flow into the design. Therefore, I’d chosen to have the Erudite symbol in one of the pans and the Dauntless flames in the other. 

It didn’t end there – quickly, Tori managed to convince me to revisit the design and weave other ideas into the scale arms and the back until it turned into a full-body piece covering my entire back, half of my arms and even my butt and upper thighs. Let’s just say that the art on my body is probably worth three months’ allowance points in Dauntless, which is a lot even by our tattoo standards. 

“I was thinking that I only have three factions on there, which is kind of sad. I mean, how would Amity feel if they found out they weren’t on my body forever?” I laughed a little. The momentary wave of nausea had passed and I found myself shovelling another spoonful of soup into my mouth. I could do this. I wasn’t going to let this silly little thing destroy me from within. 

“You know, I actually don’t think that’s a bad idea. I just hope you know what you’re doing,” he said. 

“What do you mean?” I frowned a little.

Four shrugged his shoulder, as if he didn’t quite know how to reply to that question. After a few heartbeats, however, he’d found his words and said, “I just don’t want you to get in trouble. I mean, yeah, the faction system is slowly becoming a little less strict, but I don’t want you to be chewed out for actually believing that all five factions have a right to exist.” He laughed a little at that, even though there was little humour in it. “I’m afraid that we’ve proclaimed victory before winning all battles.” 

I let out a whistling gust of air – this was a topic far too earnest for a terribly unsuccessful day after which I just wanted to lay down and die. Divergence, after all, had only become legalised and exempt from the death penalty about five years ago and we were still in early stages of recovery from the hit that our society had taken from the almost century-old hunting of people with this trait. I was glad that I’d gone through initiation after the serum had been adjusted and the patch had slowly been cleared. But change doesn’t happen overnight, I guess. 

“Oh, Thirty. You’re so grim.” 

His eyebrows jerked together ever so slightly as he very pointedly examined the dirt under his fingernails. “You didn’t have to hide during your initiation. You didn’t have to face the brunt of this incredible hatred towards our kind that surfaced before the altercations between Abnegation and Erudite.” 

“I know. But that doesn’t mean we have to let all this shit live. I don’t think the Erudite are bad. In fact, I think it’s about time we stopped being such assholes about these guys. What would we be doing without science?” 

At that, he shrugged. “You’re probably one of the few people who think as progressively as that.”   
Our conversation subsided without further notice after that and the two of us focused on our food again. To be honest, Four and I had had that conversation before (with Zeke sitting idly by, looking vastly uncomfortable and saying nothing, as he was doing right now), but I was refusing to take it seriously. From now on, it could only really get better for Divergents, and if no one had any ambitions to be more open-minded, I’d have to be the first.


	9. Self-Pity Is the Nicest Lake to Drown in

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi everyone! 
> 
> I really hope you enjoy this chapter!   
> Have a wonderful day! 
> 
> M

_That was it_. That was the answer to the question I’d been chewing on the entire night. It had been right in front of me, all this time, and I’d been too stupid to see it. I’d been too focused on details, I’d missed the bigger picture; I hadn’t seen the forest for all the trees. Now that it was all laid out in front of me, the answer was crystal clear. 

However, Coulter did not seem to be quite as excited by my discovery as I was. 

“What the fuck, Harper?” he asked. He blinked against the light blearily, his eyes narrow and unwelcoming. Oops. It was, ostensibly, a little later than originally assumed. 

“I figured it out, Coulter,” I said, bouncing on the balls of my feet a little. “I figured out what’s going on. They didn’t move _outside_ , they moved deeper into the earth. There’s an entire network beneath the compound and they must’ve gone back to the building without us noticing!” 

Coulter, however, did not seem riveted by my epiphany. He was rubbing his eyes, looking, for a moment, endearingly childlike – for a second, I saw the little boy that he must’ve been one day, two decades ago. Small, chubby hands reaching for his face; small eyes blinking tiredly out of deep sockets with short blond eyelashes. The gesture had something so childish and innocent that I smiled, completely involuntarily. 

“Harper,” he said. His voice was raspy, deep and cracked from only just waking up. My smile was extinguished, just like that. Something inside my stomach stirred. Want? Desire? Embarrassment? It had to be the latter of the three. “It’s three in the morning. Couldn’t this revelation have waited until the morning?” 

I scratched the back of my neck, suddenly realising just how tired I was. I hadn’t slept in what felt like forever, spending the entire night pondering on the issue at hand. At the times that I did sleep, I woke up mere minutes later, plagued by fiery red nightmare after nightmare. Something was nicking at my brain, eating away my thoughts slowly. Bit by bit. And I knew what it was. It was Evil Ina and her band of evildoers.

“I’m sorry, Coulter,” I said finally, retreating a few steps. “I didn’t realize it was that late.” 

He looked down at my attire – I was still wearing training clothes; black sweatpants with a black t-shirt and a jacket over the top. My boots were untied, the laces hanging loosely and almost making me trip over every single step. I was surprised to see that there was no trace of aggression in his features. Quite the contrary: He looked disturbingly close to fond as he stared at me, only a tiny little frown creasing his forehead. 

“Get some sleep,” he grunted, “You’ll need it.” 

With which pronouncement he closed the door in my face swiftly, mumbling something about people without the ability to tell when they were unwelcome, but he wasn’t fooling me; I knew that he was pleased I’d figured out what we’d been poring over for days. I shook myself awake from the idiotic stupor that I’d found myself in and quickly walked back to my apartment, lying down in the bed and looking at the ceiling until my alarm clocked blared, proclaiming the beginning of my day.

~

“Daydrinking alone.” A laugh emanated from someone next to me. “Very classy.” 

Zeke plopped down in the seat next to me, nudging the beer in front of me with his finger. 

“How many have you had so far?” he asked softly. It sounded a little pitying, like he was about to pat my head and tell me that everything was going to be fine. I suddenly missed Four’s totally non-patronising, caring tone. 

“Like two or three,” I said, shrugging. “It’s not a big deal.” 

“Bad day?” 

I nodded wordlessly. After my early-morning stint, Coulter, now apparently having rediscovered his hatred for me, had decided to spend all eight hours taking the piss out of me – of course, it was basically the only thing that had spiced up the whole day. 

We’d trekked over to the site of the crime one last time to test my theory. Sure enough, we had discovered a narrow trapdoor, hidden beneath the charred remains of the desk, but I didn’t have time to gloat over my finding as Coulter immediately reprimanded me for not finding it the first time we were here.

Then, when I had been convinced he’d given me whiplash from how quickly his moods had changed, I had squeezed my way through the trapdoor and into a narrow tunnel – it led to a bathroom in the south wing; right into the ventilation vents. There were several bends and crossroads in the tunnel and only by miracle did I find the exit on the first try. I suspected that the tunnel network led to another storage hall as well. Probably multiple halls, but Ina had counted on me and Coulter never discovering the trapdoor. 

The rest of the afternoon was spent analysing the security footage from the bathroom that the tunnel led to. A gruelling four hours of staring at a screen and writing down the descriptions of every person that came and went. 

When Coulter had finally released me from his grasp, my eyes were burning like hell and I was ready to scream.

“If I hear the guy make _one more comment_ about my ‘man-body’, I’m gonna punch him until he passes out. It’s fucking ridiculous.” 

Zeke snorted. “ _He_ is calling _you_ too muscly?” 

I sighed. “Pot, kettle.” 

When the server passed us, Zeke flagged her down and ordered another round of beers as well as something to eat. This place was about fifteen-hundred times better than the stuff we got in the dining hall, but it had its price. I could see the number of credits on my account dwindle as I tore into a handful of spiced cheesy nachos – not even any of that soy shit but _real_ cheese made from _real_ dairy. I felt luxurious even as cheese grease spilt down my chin in oily cascades. 

“I feel like he’s just being cruel for no reason. Like, I’m honestly not that bad. I’ve been pretty decent to the guy since we started working together.” There was a lump in my throat that I couldn’t swallow away, but I honestly did not know why it was there. I was neither embarrassed nor sad. Simply angry. Angry that Coulter had fooled me last night. He’d almost had me believe that he was a decent, normal human being. 

“Rae, it’s Eric Coulter. I think he steals lollipops straight out of the hands of toddlers for fun. He’s always cruel.” 

I nodded. “I know. I just don’t understand what his problem is,” I continued, “I mean, I’m not that bad. I’m not a bad person.”

Zeke reached out and patted my shoulder a few times, which was usually his crappy excuse for cheering someone up. It was almost comical, the way he had such a terrible time dealing with other people’s feelings. But then again, it was Zeke, and he’d always been like that; a bit childish and a bit stupid and clumsy about everything involving other people and their emotions. 

“Don’t worry,” he said, “I’m sure he’ll come around.” 

I smiled and turned back to my beer, taking a large sip. “You know, I miss this,” I said suddenly, in a fit of neurotic honesty. “Just us, hanging out.” 

This didn’t seem to sit too well with him, though, as his beer glass hit the table with just a little more force than was necessary. “Rae, I know you don’t like Shauna, but you don’t need to actively try to manipulate my relationship.” 

My eyes widened. “What the fuck, Zeke?” I asked, trying to sound indignant but managing to come off a lot more whiny than intimidating. 

He brought the beer to his lips again while his other hand reached for the nachos. He stuffed a handful of them into his mouth. It was obvious that he was buying himself more time until he had to explain himself. Only now did I notice that the corner of his mouth didn’t quirk upward like it naturally and usually did. He’d been acting weird at breakfast, too, come to think of it. Always looking around with this haunted look in his eyes and jumping every time that someone sat down near him. Probably a fight between him and Shauna – those tended to suck the life out of him. 

“I just don’t like the fact that the two of you don’t get along,” he explained eventually. 

“I’ll try harder,” I said, “I’m sorry, dude.” 

For some reason, that seemed to satisfy him, and we went on drinking silently, munching on nachos in between sips. Sometime later that evening, Four joined us with Tris at his side and Shauna eventually turned up, too, sitting next to Zeke and wrapping a protective arm around him while she stared at me like I’d done something terrible. 

It only occurred to me when Zeke moved a little away from her that the two seemed to still be fighting, but my friend had never been one to actually talk about his problems. He was the type of person who would just push down their pain and never speak of it. Of course, it came back to bite him in the ass regularly, but that had never stopped him from doing the same damn thing over and over again. 

The two couples and the fifth wheel in the form of me had a few more drinks but retired early, all of them claiming that they had to work tomorrow. Of course, I did too, and that had never stopped us before. Fondly, I remembered the time that we’d partied so hard that we’d had to go straight back to work, still drunk and nursing our emerging, painful hangover throughout a day of sitting behind our screens in the Control Room. Zeke had thrown up in a lavatory during his patrols, earning himself a week of fence duty. 

Those days were over, though. It was difficult to get Zeke to drink more than three beers and Four didn’t really get drunk either anymore since he’d met Tris. Don’t get me wrong, drinking shouldn’t be glorified and it’s not like I equate getting pissed with having a good time (it helps sometimes, though). 

It also isn’t like I hated relationships or anything, believe me. I didn’t think that it was the ladies in their lives that made my two best friends so dreadfully boring – it was just the fact that they’d grown up and wanted to move on from being stupid kids who almost drank themselves into a coma two or three times a week. 

I was just convinced that I was never going to reach that point. I didn’t want to be like them. I didn’t want to be _boring_ and _complacent_. 

Even if that meant I was going to be alone forever. Not that I was ever going to find someone to love, someone to be my boyfriend or some shit. I didn’t believe in these kinds of things, and quite frankly, I thought people in relationships were fucking pathetic. They were usually so focussed on one another, so desperately in love that nausea rose in my throat whenever I saw someone telling another that they _loved_ them. It made me sick.

It made me even sicker to see my two best friends in the world be under the spell of these two women. Tris, I had no problem with. Shauna, however, was a bitch. When I eventually thought that, relief flooded through me. She was a bitch. Not because she was Zeke’s girlfriend, not because I was jealous of her and _certainly_ not simply because she was a woman – but because she was a bitch. A horrid one. She kept wrapping her arm protectively around Zeke like I was about to snatch him away, like a witch stealing a child and substituting it with a changeling. As if I would even want him! If I did, something would have happened years ago. 

At the end of the day, though, I’d have to accept that my friend loved her, if I wanted to stay. That was the sad part. I felt like I was holding on to this friendship for dear life while he was doing his best to remain detached, indifferent. 

I sighed, staring up at the ceiling above me. It was riddled with cracks. 

In the end, I’d have to deal with it, like I always did.


	10. Naked Heat

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi everyone! 
> 
> I am so, so, so sorry that I haven't posted in over a month! I actually have most of this story written out and only need to proofread it, but I'm working on so many projects simultaneously (one of which might even possibly become. I an actual full-length novel in the future, oh my god) and sometimes kind of lose sight of one. I really hope that you haven't lost interest in Rae and Eric's story! More updates coming very soon, I promise! 
> 
> Thank you so, so much for reading my story and I hope you have a wonderful day!  
> M

There were two suspicious figures walking out of the bathroom, their faces hidden by dark hoods. I couldn’t make out their features. Still, I kept following them with my eyes, trying to see how far they went and how much I could see on the screens. 

“We could just try to hunt them down,” said Coulter.

I shook my head. “If we spook them, the real people behind this are gonna fall off the grid and we’re never gonna find them. Trust me.”  
Coulter rolled his eyes but said nothing. I knew that he very badly wanted to comment on my use of language yet again – I’d probably picked up more of the slang from all those pre-war crime stories than I should’ve, but I’d managed to convince myself that reading that stuff was akin to research and I was doing it all for the purpose of solving this case. No one had to know that I found immense enjoyment in reading stories from way back when the world was still chaotic and disorganised. 

Looking over to where Coulter was sat, I suddenly saw that he was twiddling his thumbs, playing with his nails and knuckles. He seemed nervous, for some reason. 

“Everything all right?” I asked in a sudden fit of what I decided to label as curiosity for now (I didn’t have the heart to place it anywhere near a fond emotion, not if it was felt toward Coulter). 

My tone was apparently still way too mellow as he turned around, looking somewhat perturbed. “None of your business, Harper.”

I didn’t reply, instead opted to write down the time and place of the occurrence we had just followed via camera. That was how we’d probably be spending a lot more time in the future, merely sitting here and writing down times and names and places. At least I’d managed to convince Coulter that we had to wait and observe for a while if we really wanted to solve this. He’d wanted to immediately storm the place and bug it or something, but I knew that would bite us in the ass. 

Thus, we were sitting here, hoping that these people would still use the tunnels for moving something or for getting in and out of the compound. We weren’t wrong. People had been using the exit through the bathroom numerously during the past weeks. I was wondering why – they couldn’t be going to the burnt-down warehouse, could they? It was probably one of the countless forks in the tunnel that led to another secret lair. 

To be frank, it was a bit of a conundrum. What were we going to do? Did we have to storm the place and arrest them? Or would it be better to wait and see? 

When I arrived at dinner that day, Four sensed my rotten mood and refrained from commenting on it. He had a way of picking up on my moods that no one else in the world seemed to be able to copy – maybe that was why we were such good friends. I smiled serenely at him and that was all it took for him to slide his chocolate pudding across the table over to me. 

“Thanks,” I said around a spoonful of gooey goodness. He nodded gruffly. 

“How’s the investigation coming along?” 

It was my turn to grunt this time, and he didn’t push the matter, sensing what I felt once again – this time, it was not just rotten but edging into the angry-territory. Coulter had done his best today to treat me like kind of an idiot and to be honest, I was way past the point of actually caring what he thought of me. He always acted like I was a nuisance. As if I was the one who constantly shot down every attempt of forging a decent plan of action.  
After dinner, I went back to my room without further ado, unwilling to stick around to watch the Four-and-Tris show when she inevitably walked into the cafeteria and the two of them embraced like they hadn’t seen each other in weeks. I dreamt of bathrooms and a pair of stormy grey eyes that night and woke up with a headache and the unquenchable thirst to prove myself in front of Coulter. 

~

“And how do you plan on doing that, Harper?” Coulter’s eyebrow was raised, a sardonic smile playing around his lips. Someday, I was going to wipe that look off his face. Preferably with my fist. Possibly a chair. 

“We’re going to try and follow them outside. We kind of know that they use this tunnel for moving through the compound, but we need to know whether there’s another warehouse to look at. I’m going to follow them around until they lead us…well, somewhere.” 

The arrogance on his face seemed to disappear for a moment, replaced by a surprised look, but it was back within seconds – so quickly that I wondered whether I had imagined the spurt of emotion. “You’re going to follow them? And then what, have them discover you after five seconds and shoot you in the face?” 

I rolled my eyes. “I was first in my year. I’m pretty sure I can handle following a couple of perps.” 

His eyebrows remained raised, but he didn’t comment on my use of another term I’d learnt from the countless books I’d been burying myself in for the past weeks. One of them was called _Naked Heat_ and told the story of a tough detective wanting to solve a murder (a crime that had been eradicated fully in Chicago of the present). The woman that had been killed was a gossip columnist (God knows what that is supposed to mean) and all the suspects were among high-ranking people – politicians, celebrities (I hear those had been people who had gotten paid to share their lives with the world, but I don’t quite understand what that is supposed to mean either). My point being, maybe there was more to this case than it let on at first? Maybe someone we knew was involved. Maybe this war part of something bigger; something that we had to take care of before it blew up. 

“Whatever, Harper. You can do that if you think it’ll help, just wear the goddamn ear piece. Now get out of my face.” 

I was a little disappointed that Coulter had accepted the plan so easily. I had prepared this great speech about how we might have something to learn from our ancestors and how we might be able to re-adapt some of the traditions and customs of former times, like, for example, investigative ‘police’ work. Surely, there was no need for policemen nowadays because the Dauntless protected the city from everyone and crime was nearly non-existent, but some cases, like this one, showed that there were some novelties we had to deal with in this updated version of the faction system. Now that Divergents were no longer persecuted and the factionless were no longer walled off from our communities to an almost violent extent, we had to face the issues that this new, more mixed and less regulated society would bring. 

“Alright.” 

I jammed the ear piece into my ear and took one last wistful look at the surveillance camera. 

“I’m just gonna walk there and you’ll tell me if someone looks shady, okay?” 

Coulter rolled his eyes again, but nodded nonetheless. 

I gulped down the ball of nervousness that had inexplicably formed in my throat. I could take on fifteen soldiers at a time and I had no problem walking into the factionless district unarmed to break up a brawl or something, but this was much more difficult. It called for more than just brute force. Although we weren’t all mindless soldiers here, it was definitely more about the brawn than brain in Dauntless. 

“Someone looks suspicious in the area. Start moving, Harper,” I heard Coulter snap through both the ear piece and from right next to me. I nodded at him for a last time and left the Control Room, letting the door bang shut behind me. 

I needed to look inconspicuous as I walked down the corridors, so I decided to employ the saunter I was pretty sure I usually did. Well - apparently, I hadn't done such a great job. 

“You look like you’re about to crap your pants, Harper, walk a little less stupid,” said a mean little voice coming from my earpiece. I didn’t deign Coulter worthy of a reply to that useless jab and simply walked on, albeit a little less pointedly relaxed now. I also didn’t deign him worthy of me wasting my breath to correct him – it was _stupidly_ , not _stupid_ , or had the apocalypse eradicated our abilities to use adverbs correctly? 

After I’d rounded multiple corners and eventually found myself only a few moments away from reaching the bathroom, I was surprised to find a light twisting feeling rumbling through my stomach. I hadn’t been nervous about stepping into a dangerous situation in over three years, but the slight film of sweat coating my palms was telling me that this run had ended. I felt even a quite large drop of sweat pave its way down my back, stopping at the base of my spine to mock me before disappearing into the fabric of my stretchy black pants. 

“There’s two suspicious-looking people walking down a few corridors away. You better get to the bathroom quick and hide so that you can see where they’re going.” I nodded, only to realize seconds later that Coulter couldn’t see me except for the security cameras – I sincerely hoped I hadn’t just made a complete fool of myself. 

I slid through a small crack in the door just as I heard footsteps approaching from the other direction and made a beeline for one of the stalls, quickly locking myself in. I sat on the closed toilet lid and drew my two legs in so that my feet wouldn’t be quite so obvious to the suspects. I hadn’t hidden myself a second too early, because the door was flung open only a heartbeat later, bringing in a tepid breeze and an uneasy feeling. I felt a little ungainly, the way that I was perched on a closed toilet with my knees by my ears, but this had to do. I held my breath, hoping that my rasping hadn’t alerted them already. 

“Anyone in the stalls?” asked one voice. It was deep-dark and I didn’t recognise it one bit. Therefore, I simply sat there, probably going slightly green from holding my breath so zealously. 

“Nope,” said another voice. I heard a few soft cracks, like someone was leaning down and their joints were protesting under the movement. If I wasn’t already holding my breath, I certainly would have started then. 

“Then let’s go. Ina’s already waiting for us.” 

_Ina_. My eyes must’ve been bugging out of my skull as I heard the name. Presumably looking like an insect and also probably starting to go blueish from not breathing, I also bit my tongue to keep myself from making any noise. I had definitely found the right people here. 

There was a fair amount of rustling and bustling noise as the two people scurried about. I couldn’t see what they were doing, but it must’ve opened some kind of passage, as I soon heard a grating noise proclaiming that something heavy was being dragged around. 

“You first,” said the first voice. 

Then there were footsteps – I finally dared to approach the gap between the door and the wall of the cubicle to spy where their exit was. I was already much too late to find out how the mechanism worked, but I assumed it would be the same one that Coulter and I had come through when we’d found the one passage that had led from the office to the compound. Having already seen their old place, I knew that this wasn’t going to be a walk in the park. 

There wasn’t a lot I could see through the tiny gap, but it was enough to notice that the passage they were squeezing through was the size of an air vent – just like the one the two people who had started this whole mess had vanished into, but definitely not the one that led to their lair that we had already discovered. These people had had time to make two tunnels that were unknown to the Dauntless? 

The shaft was situated at knee-height. I pressed myself harder against the gap and finally saw the two men get on their knees and start crawling into the passage. It closed neatly behind the second one of them, suggesting that there was some kind of closing mechanism behind it. 

I waited for a few more moments, then I finally took a deep breath, letting oxygen course back into my system.


	11. You Better Run Like the Devil

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi! 
> 
> So, remember when I said on the last chapter that updates were going to be more frequent? Yeah, so. That was a month ago. It's official, I suck. Writer's block is a bitch, depression is a bigger bitch. Ugh. I'm sorry, everyone, I'll try to be better at updating this puppy, it's just been getting increasingly hard for me to focus on it. Anyway, thank you so, so much for sticking with this story and still reading it, it means the world! Have a wonderful day! 
> 
> M

“Coulter?” I whispered. 

An affirmative grunt came from the earpiece. 

“They crawled into a passage similar to the one at the junction, but it’s not the same, it’s a new one,” I said, “I’m going to follow them.”  
Coulter groaned. “Are you armed, at least?”

I was probably blushing at the question, because I was very much unarmed. There was no reason for me to carry a weapon within the compound and I certainly hadn’t expected to get his approval for this mission that quickly, which had left me with little prep time. Overjoyed, I had forgotten all care. 

“Sure,” I replied, almost succeeding in keeping my voice even. If Coulter knew that I was lying, he wasn’t letting it show. Apparently, he believed me, seeing as no answer cut through the sound of static emanating from the earpiece. 

Checking to see if the coast was clear, I slowly lowered my feet back onto the ground and flicked the lock to the stall open. 

“Warn me if anyone comes my way,” I snapped and Coulter, once again, grunted in agreement. 

With a few quick strides, I made my way over to the wall I’d seen the two men vanish into and crouched down, examining the neat white tiles for any hint of what I needed to do. However, there was nothing that I could find. Everything was as normal as it could be. Suspiciously normal. I slid my fingers over the cool, smooth surface of the tiles, trying to find any kink, any unevenness in them, but there was nothing. 

“Are you in?” asked Coulter briskly. 

“No,” I replied, tapping my index finger against a tile that was close to the ground. “I can’t find the entrance.” 

“Then hurry up, I think I got someone heading your way,” he said. 

With every person that came in here, the probability of me being spotted grew. If I was here, they’d immediately know that I was onto them. As Ina’s companion had helpfully supplied, these people were well-aware that Coulter and I were looking into the case. 

“Shit, Coulter, I can’t find it,” I said. My hands started to shake as I kept examining the tiles, trying to find something, _anything._

“Then get out of there, Harper! You still have time!” 

“ _No_!” I exclaimed. I was going to show him that I could do this. I _could_ do this. In my desperation, I hit the tiles, again and again, hoping that I would achieve at least something, but nothing happened. The wall stayed silent, mocking. 

“Harper!” bellowed Coulter into my ear. I shuffled around, ripping the earpiece out and shoving it into my pocket. I didn’t need this at the moment. My hands kept examining, running, and I could suddenly hear footsteps approaching, voices speaking. 

I was about to get up, find a place to hide – when there was suddenly a _click_. 

I didn’t know what I’d done and how I’d done it, but I was too excited about my discovery to question anything at that moment. The footsteps were approaching as I all but jumped into the hole in the wall that was opening before me. I folded my body into the shaft just as I heard a hand touch the doorknob. It was precariously close to turning. 

Almost hysterically, I heaved my body into the small tunnel, desperately searching the walls for some sort of button, anything to close the door behind me. The knob was turning, the door was creaking open – and another _click_ sounded. The opening closed behind me. 

Almost immediately, the sound of voices and steps disappeared, but I knew that I wasn’t safe. 

Without looking back, I started crawling at the fastest pace I could manage, scraping my knees open. Like the other tunnels, this one looked strikingly similar to a ventilation shaft. Maybe it had been one at some point in the past and had simply been changed and hidden to fit these people’s needs. 

Only when I’d crawled around two bends, I halted for a moment to dig the earpiece back out of my pocket. When I got it in, Coulter was currently unleashing a potpourri of very colour- and flavourful swearwords. 

“Fucking shit-ass idiot bitch, now she gets her dumb ass kidnapped and I have to fucking drag her out of there-“ 

“I’m here,” I whispered, “I’m fine. Can’t talk.” The sound of my voice bounced off the ventilation shaft and my heart suddenly leapt somewhere into my throat. Oh God, what if someone had heard me? 

Coulter seemed to be postponing his rage until my return, as all I could hear was sullen silence. I knew it was sullen because that was the guy’s default mood (besides angry).

Deciding that no one could have heard me because I couldn’t hear anything either, I kept crawling, trying to peer around corners before rounding them. Just when I was wondering whether I’d died, gone to hell and gotten stuck in a constant limbo of ventilation-shaft-crawling, a light at the end of it approached – albeit a little yellow and way too artificial to signal the outside world. Great. 

Now I was running the risk of getting set on fire, again. 

However, when I reached the end of the tunnel, all I could see was a room almost entirely identical to the one I’d unknowingly walked into the first time I’d haphazardly risked my life to go on an adventure in the compound’s ventilation system. The exit to the shaft I was in was thankfully not suspended above the ground like the other one, but basically at knee-level for an average-sized person. Unfortunately, however, that didn’t give me as much time to get a feel for the layout of the room as the last time. My line of sight was impeded by piles upon piles of boxes and crates. From here, I couldn’t see what was inside any of them, but I assumed it was the same thing as in the other hall. 

There were no voices alerting me to anyone’s presence, so I stuck my head out of the shaft and looked around as surreptitiously as possible, trying to scan for any possible enemies I had to take down quickly and silently (and also without a weapon, I reminded myself with a twinge of regret – I could’ve at least packed a knife to throw). There was no one, though. At least ostensibly so. 

Thus, I moved myself out of the shaft in fear of the people behind me also coming through and turtle-walked over to the crates, crouching behind them. I needed to find a better hiding spot if I wanted to bust anyone here without being set on fire again. 

Looking around, I saw that there was a corner in which something of a fort of crates had been piled up. It was basically walled off in every direction except for one, which seemed to be perfect. Therefore, I turtled over and quickly hid myself behind a bunch of boxes made out of splintery wood. 

Before I could get a good feel of the place, though, curiosity got the better of me and I reached into an open crate that was near me. It contained neat glass vials, all filled with the exact same amount of some red liquid that looked just a little bit like it was smoking inside the vial. They were neatly corked up. 

No one would notice if I nicked one or two or analysis. It was perfect. 

As I was shovelling the vials into my pocket, I suddenly heard footsteps approaching from the direction of the shaft exit, so I pressed myself closer against the crates, hoping that the person coming by wouldn’t bother looking at me. 

The footsteps got louder and louder, and my hope came true as a small, skinny woman that I didn’t recognise merely walked on, taking a sharp left further into the maze of crates and boxes, and disappeared. I let out a deep breath. I supposed this had been enough recklessness for the day. To be honest, I was starting to sweat ridiculously, probably due to the fact that I was vastly outnumbered in here, at least according to the extent of my limited knowledge. One the other hand, I could prove to Coulter that I wasn’t a wimp if I went deeper into the maze. Curiosity was spurring me on. 

My heart beat so heavily that I almost jumped at the sound of the earpiece static announcing that Coulter was about to say something. “Get out of there _now_ , Harper,” he hissed.

“Why?” I hissed back. There was no one around here, I was sure of it.

“There’s a group of, like, fifteen people going into the restroom,” he explained curtly. “They’re armed to the teeth.” 

My heart suddenly dropped into my pants. Fuck. Fuck, fuck, _fuck_. What on earth was I going to do? I couldn’t go back the way I’d come, I’d immediately run into these people, but where was I to go? I mean, sure, I could hide until they’d passed me and then make a run for it, but chances were that they’d see me in my crappy hiding place. Fuck! 

I had no choice but to venture deeper into the lion’s den. 

Looking over my shoulder every two seconds or so, I started to leave my relatively safe hiding spot. I made my way carefully through the maze of stacks of boxes and crates, trying to be ready to strike at all times. Despite being unarmed, I was ready to fight anyone I needed to in order to get out of there as quickly as possible. I took a deep breath. 

There had to be an exit other than the one I’d come through. There just _had_ to be. 

A drop of sweat wandered quickly down from my armpit to my elbow. Stopping and listening every yard or so, I tried to find out whether anyone was near me. Maybe they were all in some type of meeting and I wouldn’t even be run into anyone? There was a possibility that I’d be lucky and able to walk out of here unbothered, unseen. 

Well. Do I seem like a particularly lucky person to you? 

“Have you talked to the distributers yet?” asked a sharp, pointed voice. I immediately recognised it. 

“Yes, ma’am,” answered another voice dutifully. _Ina_. I’d run into her again. Fuck. 

“Good. Tell them that there’s been a change of plans and that they should come to me and talk out the new strategy. Just because we have two dumb soldiers sticking their nose where it shouldn’t go, that doesn’t mean our operation is off. I still want to get this shit sold.” 

“Yes, ma’am.” 

The voices were approaching me from behind. It would probably only take a few more moments until they would round the corner and spot me cowering here – for a moment, I even played with the idea of risking my cover being blown for a small glance at Ina, just so that I could identify her in the future. But that was a ridiculous idea. So of course, I did the only sensible thing: I started running as quickly and as quietly as possible, all but throwing myself toward the next bend in the corridor of their contraband. It was obvious they were selling this stuff, but what was it? From the looks of it, some type of serum. God. And, most importantly, how did they know that Coulter and I were looking into the matter? They had to have an inside man. 

I gulped, trying to coax my legs into running faster. Only a few more steps – and I was safe behind the next corner. Or so I thought. 

As I rounded it, I stuttered to a halt in front of a very, very large and very, very scary man. He probably had an entire foot on me in height (granted, I wasn’t the tallest, but still) and the weight of a small beluga whale in muscles. There was a mean expression on his face, one that said he wasn’t here to play games. 

“Who are you?” he asked in a voice that resembled the rumbling of thunder. 

“Erm, I’m, ah…,” I stuttered, trying desperately to find an explanation for my odd behaviour. Maybe he wouldn’t recognise me, maybe- 

“I know you! You’re Harper! What are you-“ Realisation dawned on his brutish face. 

It seemed to trickle into his brain that I wasn’t authorised to be in here. His huge paws reached out down to grasp me, and I evaded them with a risky manoeuvre that included me throwing myself to the side and all but falling on the floor. The corridor we were currently in was too narrow for me to squeeze past this giant, so I only had the choice of running back and hoping there was an exit elsewhere – but then suddenly, the man leapt for me and I saw my chance to make a run for it.

In his attack, he’d forgotten to protect his left side, so I reached out, in blinding speed, and punched him in the ear, knocking the gigantic man off-balance. His disorientation allowed me to slip past his massive body and into the corridor, taking off running. Behind me, I heard something huge crash into a pile of crates and I suddenly found myself accompanied by an arrhythmic soundtrack of glass shattering as I kept running down the corridor. So much for staying covert.

“I think we have a problem here, Coulter,” I gasped, and the earpiece sizzled to life. 

“Do you want me to come after you?” he asked. If he was any other person on earth, I would’ve said he sounded almost concerned, but come on. This was Eric Coulter we were talking about here. 

“No!” I replied, trying to make my words as clear as possible while I was running as fast as I could through this labyrinth. “I’ll get out. But now they know that we know,” I said. 

A string of choice words emanated from the earpiece and if I hadn’t been running for my life, the selection of words probably would have made me blush. 

I rounded another corner. There had to be an exit somewhere, but where? How would I ever get out of here? I decided that the door that would get me out of here was probably the one that would be the most heavily guarded. Therefore, towards the most people. By now, Ina had probably talked to the huge man and found out that I was in here, so I pushed myself to keep running, my feet all but flying a few inches above the ground. 

Somewhere here, there had to be – _bingo_. Light that was too blueish to be artificial crept up the wall right in front of me. Lunging around another corner, I could finally see that it came from a tall steel door. It looked eerily similar to the one that had brought me to my safety in the fire over at their other lair; hopefully it would have the same effect. My black trainers pounded against the ground as I ran over to the door. 

This was almost too easy. Where were the guards? The hitmen? The big, strong guys that would stop me from getting out of here, detain me and then interrogate me? 

My questions were answered when I pressed my body against the door, pushing up and finally wrenching it open, escaping into the warm fall air. 

Ten eyes regarded me in confusion.


	12. Hail Mary

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi everyone!  
> I'm back again, after a loooong time, but more is to come soon! Thank you all so much for reading, I hope you'll enjoy this chapter.  
> Have a wonderful day,  
> M

There were five people staring at me, three women and two men. They were all clad in Dauntless black and carrying pistols at their waists. I gulped – these people weren’t here to fuck around. 

“What are you doing here, Harper?” asked one of them, a tall, brown-haired woman with a broad scar splitting her eyebrow and lip in half. Her eye was discoloured and whiteish where the scar cut through it. To put it into fewer words: She was absolutely terrifying, and I had the sinking feeling that I recognised her from somewhere. 

“Oh, just dropping by,” I said nonetheless, because I apparently had not only a lack of common sense but also a deathwish. 

Coulter sighed into the earpiece, but withheld any of his useless commentary for now, thankfully. 

“Catch her, but don’t kill her!” barked the scarred, scary woman at her fellow guards. 

And her first mistake would become her downfall: Don’t ever shout out an order that will give your enemy a considerable advantage. Granted, I was greatly outnumbered, but if they couldn’t kill me, they’d have to be a lot more careful than I would, considering I had no such reservations. 

I took a moment to regard my surroundings: I really was outside and able to see the Dauntless compound a good half mile away from me. The ground beneath me was hard-packed dirt, suggesting that people walked here quite often – probably Ina and her renegade band of criminals. I cracked my knuckles, looking expectantly at the group in front of me. 

Of course, the two men, having gone to the Action Movie School of Attacking One at a Time, came at me first. 

I dispatched one of them with a knee to the groin and the other one took just a moment to see what kind of agony his companion was in – which was a mistake. With a swift kick to his head, I beat him unconscious and turned to the group of three women in front of me. 

They were smarter and stealthier, coming towards me slowly and protecting each other. The woman that had first spoken to me flipped her braided dark hair out of her face and slowly inched her hand to her waist. I knew what was going to happen: I was going to taunt her with the fact that she couldn’t kill me, she was going to ask who said anything about killing and then she’d maim me with her gun, twirling her moustache while she did it. 

I’d read all the books. 

I decided that this was not the right time to play hero and struck out at the first fighter. She stood fairly close to me with her fists raised and a determined expression on her face. With a start, I noticed that she was still quite young, with soft-looking lips and wide eyes. I felt bad when I heard the bone in her nose crunch beneath my fist, though in this case, it was her or me, and my priority was, quite frankly, my own survival. Sue me. 

The assault caused her two companions to come at me, trying to approach me from two sides so that I wouldn’t be able to fend them all off. Shit. The youngest of them had recovered as well and came at me from behind, blood still dripping from her nose in thick globs. 

Fuck. Fuck, I was cornered. 

In a hail-Mary-move, I struck out both my elbows and right leg at the same time, hoping to catch at least one of them off-guard – and alas, I even succeeded in two cases. The woman to my left sank to the ground, clutching her throat and the girl behind me got an unceremonious kick to the stomach which left her doubling over. 

However, the woman I’d easily identified as their boss was a lot harder to catch off-guard. She’d leapt out of the way just before I could’ve reached her and punched at me in almost-lightning-speed. I turned my head at the very last moment, avoiding a punch to the ear and instead accepting one to the cheek – this, at least, didn’t leave me completely disoriented. 

Looking around me quickly, I noticed that the young girl had given up apparently, clutching her hurting stomach and nose. The other woman that I’d hit in the throat was also out, gasping for air. 

It was only me and the last guard. 

Until I started hearing rumbling behind the door – probably reinforcements. Shit. I needed to end this quickly. Therefore, I jerked out my fist, aiming for her jaw, but she ducked again and retaliated by jamming her elbow into my stomach. I grunted but sensed my advantage in this position and dug my heels into the ground. She shrieked when I grabbed her neatly braided dark hair and jerked her to the side. Yet still, she avoided my punch to the side of her face and hit me in the stomach again. I felt nauseous. 

Behind me, one of the men groaned, but I could hear that he was becoming less out-of-it. He was probably going to be back on his feet within the next few moments. Shit, fuck! 

Okay, think. This woman was lean and tall, but not particularly strong. Of course, compared to the huge man I’d shoved before in the hall, I was a weakling as well; but in relation to this woman, I was actually pretty muscled. 

Grimly, I thought of Coulter claiming that I had a ‘man-body’ and silently cursed the guy. He was such an asshole (which is admittedly not the thing to be thinking in a situation like this, but whatever). 

I had to take this woman out within the next few heartbeats or I’d be in grave trouble. So, I did the only thing I could think of and circled my hands around her, raising her up above the ground, and straight-up wrestle-threw her, my arm muscles protesting at the insane movement. She hit the dirt and stayed there. Somehow, this insane bullshit move had worked. 

Then I started running. 

My calves burned, my lungs burned, my arms burned, everything burned. But I kept running. Behind me, I heard the moans and groans of those coming back to their bodies and slowly getting up, but I didn’t turn around. I just had to get to the compound before anything more could happen. I thought I was making pretty good progress.

But suddenly. 

_Boom_. 

What the ever-loving fuck - they were shooting at me! 

Forcing myself not to look back, I ran faster, pushing myself to the brink. I needed to get back, I needed to be fast. I wouldn’t let this be the last of my days. 

“Harper?” Coulter barked through the earpiece. “What was that?” 

Shit, so he’d heard that too. 

“I’m on my way,” I pressed out. Every breath in my lungs burned. Another boom sounded through the plain. At this distance, though, I was pretty much safe, unless they had a sniper – regular hand pistols did not have that kind of precision at this range. 

“What direction are you coming from? I’ll send someone to the door!” 

“No!” I exclaimed, “There’s a leak, a mole!” 

“What the fuck are you talking about?” he asked. 

“Someone in our ranks is working with them, Coulter,” I said, “I’ll come through the initiate’s entrance.” 

Before me, the Dauntless compound loomed up, almost scratching the sky with its gigantic construction. I kept running towards it as it continued growing bigger and bigger. The shots behind me stopped as they realised there was no way they’d get me from there. Finally, I slowed to a jog and made my way over to the initiates’ entrance. I didn’t have to jump off the building now, merely from the side of the hole, so it was an easy feat to be accomplished.

When I untangled myself from the net, I could already see Coulter standing anxiously next to it. He helped me down onto the ground, and only then did I let myself almost collapse with exhaustion. 

“Fucking hell,” he said and grabbed my arm, righting me again so that he could lead me out of the entrance and through the halls. I only half-noticed where we were going, caught in a trance state of some sort – or simply so exhausted that I could barely even stand on my own. My legs gave out at every other step or so and Coulter basically had to carry my entire weight. 

We arrived at the infirmary either two minutes or two hours later and he pushed me down on one of the cots. Gail fussed about me for maybe an hour and then had me lie down to rest. 

I feel asleep within seconds. 

 

~

 

“Did you get caught in a mincer or something?” 

I grunted something unintelligible at Zeke and plopped down next to Four, whose head shot up as soon as he’d heard the words. He turned around to look at me and when he saw my bruised and beaten face, surprise passed his face. I heard the clank of his fork hitting the table. 

“What happened to you?” he demanded loudly. 

“Nothing, training fight gone bad,” I replied, trying to brush it off. I knew that I looked bad – Gail had told me as much, making a lot of noise when I woke up about how Coulter and I always took it way too far when we were sparring. The realisation that Coulter had fed her the training fight story in order to keep it under cover that I’d apparently discovered some sort of evil organisation (mafia, I believe they used to call it) had trickled in quickly and I’d decided to just play along, telling her all those lies about how I had been shoved and then faceplanted on the concrete floors of the training room. I had at least had the mental capacity to tell her that Coulter hadn’t been at fault, because if Max got wind of this I’d be in big trouble for violating my parole regulations, as I’d taken to calling them. “Higgings shoved me and I ate shit, it happens all the time.” 

Four, unconvinced, spotted my attempt to hide the scratch that ran down my face by pointedly not turning my head to look at him and gripped my chin. “The floor suddenly grew claws?” he asked. I didn’t like his tone – it was way too reproachful for my liking. 

Coulter, to my embarrassing disappointment, hadn’t been there when I’d wrenched my eyes open in the infirmary two hours ago, but he had told Gail to tell me that he had something to take care of. Judging from the fact that the two vials of red serum had miraculously disappeared from the inside pocket of my jacket, it was obvious where he’d gone off to. I was glad that he was investigating, albeit a little sour about the fact that he’d left me alone, meaning that Ina’s henchmen could’ve finished the job any moment, probably without me even waking up. 

“And since when do you spar with Higgings?” Four added. His eyebrows were approaching dangerous new altitudes, nearing the roots of his perfectly messy brown hair. “Don’t bullshit me, Coulter did this to you.” 

“Yeah,” I replied, “because Coulter suddenly grew nine-inch nails and raked them down my face.” I rolled my eyes in an exaggerated attempt to dissuade him from blowing this out of proportion. He couldn’t know what had happened – not if I didn’t want him bodyguarding me 24/7 for the next two years. “Let it go, Nineteen, nothing happened. I fell.” Apparently, I’d said it with enough force because Four really did let it go. Grudgingly so, but I decided that this was the best I could get. 

I didn’t really have much of an appetite, so I just sort of sat there and waited for my friends to finish eating. However, when they were done, there was nothing else to do as they all claimed they were tired from a long day of work and went home, leaving me to fend for myself. Not that I was worried that Ina would come and find me, but it wouldn’t help for me to be completely alone. There was an uneasy feeling in my stomach when I walked down the dark corridors to my apartment. I expected someone to jump me at every corner. 

When I finally reached my apartment, my heart was beating a lot harder than strictly necessary and the traitorous sweat on my palms would immediately give away that I was nervous to anyone who looked a little closer. My fingers shook when I reached up and jammed my keys into the lock – only to find that it was unlocked.


	13. Made of Moonlight

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello everyone! 
> 
> Guess who's back! This time, it's a genuinely fun chapter, something for everyone who's been waiting for some fluff between Eric and Rae. 
> 
> Also, oh my God. I just saw that this story has over 1000 hits and that is insane! I am so incredibly honoured that you all take the time to read my story, it really means the world. I know that in fanfiction terms, that may not seem like a lot but I appreciate every single one of you who reads my stuff, even though I update, like, once every three years when the stars align. 
> 
> So, from the bottom of my tiny little emo heart: Thank you for the gift of your time. Thank you for all the super-nice comments that I get. I hope you're all having a wonderful month! 
> 
> If I don't manage to update for the next few weeks: Happy holidays to everyone! I hope you're all doing great. 
> 
> Love,   
> M

Raising my arms into a protective stance, I said one last prayer and finally shoved the door open, deciding that I at least wasn’t going down without a fight. Preparing to strike out at anyone in my way, I sidled into the room, not letting my guard down. There was, however, not a single soul to be found in my entire apartment. At first, I checked the living-room-bedroom-kitchen. I checked under the narrow sofa that was pushed against the wall opposite of my bed, I checked under the bed, in basically every cupboard and closet. Nothing. 

Then I heard the toilet flush. 

That was one stupid attacker if he had to take a leak midway through staking out my apartment, but I nonetheless readied myself to strike, hiding a little bit behind a wall and shielding myself from their eyes. 

When I heard the lock to my bathroom shift, I took a deep breath and finally, the door flew open and my fist flew as well. There was a surprised grunt from behind my hand and I struck something hard, only to notice that it was no assassin sent to dispatch me – it was none other than Eric Coulter himself. 

“Well, that’s a nice greeting,” he deadpanned, reaching up to touch his nose. I hadn’t done much damage, there wasn’t even any blood. “Next time, aim for the eye,” he suggested, and I couldn’t really do anything except to stand there in front of him, dumbfounded. 

“Coulter,” I said slowly, “What the fuck are you doing in my apartment? And do you really think this is the right moment to give me pointers for my close-range fighting?” 

His eyebrow shot up. “You forget yourself. I’m your superior, and your close-range fighting is lacklustre at best.” His tone was so pointedly relaxed that I had the sudden urge to break one of his bones – just a small one, really, just like, a finger or something – as he ambled towards the door. I expected him to leave, but instead he closed the door from inside. “Give me your keys,” he demanded, half turning around.

“What are you gonna do with them?” I asked. 

“I’m gonna lock the door, what did you think? Or do you want any of those people to come and stab you in your sleep?” 

My eyebrows drew together. I must’ve made the perfect image of confusion; if someone had taken a photo and stuck it in a book for toddlers to learn about emotions and expressions, it couldn’t have been any more perfect. 

“What?” 

Coulter sighed, like I was a small, confused child and he was a little exhausted from my constantly badgering him with questions. “You didn’t think I’d leave you alone after these people almost shot you out in the open, right? Now that you’ve seen their faces, they have nothing to lose,” he reasoned, taking a step toward me. “We do.” 

I was still no closer to understanding. “So you came here to play bodyguard for me?” I asked. 

“I don’t like it any more than you do,” he said, “but I really don’t want to have to deal with the paperwork if I find you murdered.”   
I rolled my eyes. There he was, good old Eric Coulter. I handed over my keys, he locked the door and gave them back to me. Frankly, I was trying not to show how relieved I really was – I was glad not to be alone, even if it meant that I had to endure that guy’s company for the night. 

“You can sleep on the couch,” I said gruffly, opening a cabinet and taking out a few blankets. “I hope you brought a toothbrush.” 

“It’s nine thirty, Harper,” said Coulter, “Are you gonna go to sleep already?” 

I snorted. “No, I’m gonna read a book. I don’t care what you do.” 

Of course, it was probably unwise to piss off the only person standing between me and an entire mafia full of people that wanted to hunt me down and kill me before I could catch them, but this was Eric Coulter and I couldn’t hold back the remarks that came up. 

“Do you at least have whiskey in this shoebox or something? I don’t wanna die of boredom here,” he said. There was a mischievous glint in his eyes that I couldn’t quite place, but I decided that this was probably a problem for another day and walked over to my well-hidden liquor cabinet and pulled out a half-empty bottle of whiskey that Four and I had planned to polish off when my punishment of working with Coulter was over. Now that Four apparently was above drinking whiskey due to his newly developed love life, I no longer had any attachment to the stuff. 

Zeke had given me this bottle for my last birthday – it had been a great party. Four and I had been up all night, talking and dancing and laughing and even Lauren had joined in for a few drinks. Of course, Zeke had left at ten. I wondered, for a bizarre moment, whether my next birthday would be spent completely alone. Four would probably leave at ten now, too. 

I sighed. 

Coulter didn’t notice my discomfort (or he noticed and simply didn’t give a flying fuck) and plopped down unceremoniously on the couch, unscrewing the cap of the bottle and pouring himself a large glass of whiskey. After a moment of hesitation, I sat next to him and wordlessly poured myself an even larger glass. 

“What happened to the reading session?” 

“Don’t test me, Coulter,” I replied, suddenly in a very, very bad mood. 

“What’s wrong? Got up on the wrong side of the bed today?” He seemed to find that remark hilarious, so I let him have it and took a big gulp of whiskey. It was good stuff, straight from Amity distilleries. Pretty difficult to get a hold of these days – white wine was all the rage, and the cheapest to produce without using too much food. Zeke had probably paid a handsome price for it, and I felt grimly satisfied wasting it on Eric Coulter. For some reason, I was angrier at Zeke and Four than normally – probably because, once again, Zeke had failed to see any seriousness when I’d turned up to the table looking like I’d gotten in a fight with a mountain lion and Four had, once again, forgotten about me in his relentless quest to find things to hate Coulter for and to stoke their childish pissing contest. 

“Why did you just break into my apartment?” I asked. “You could’ve just talked to me at dinner and told me that you were coming here.” 

He shrugged. “I didn’t think your friends would be all that excited to see me after the story of what happened to your face made the rounds. You’re welcome, by the way.” 

I nodded in agreement. “Four bought it immediately.” 

“Of course. Your precious Number Boy wants to believe anything that can make me seem like a huge villain.” If I wasn’t mistaken, there was a slight hint of bitterness behind his words. I was close to asking him about it, but ultimately decided not to push my luck tonight. 

There was about half a minute of vaguely uncomfortable silence as I polished off my drink and kept staring ahead, refusing to turn and look Coulter in the eyes. 

“I brought those serum vials to someone who can analyse them for us,” he said a little later, playing with his glass. His long fingers wrapped around it so easily and there was a short, bizarre moment when I thought about how _tenderly_ he was gripping the thing and how it would feel to have those hands on me. I blamed it on the booze. 

“How long will it take to get it figured out?” I asked. 

“Maybe a couple of days. We have no idea what we’re dealing with here – for all we know, it could be someone’s plot to poison half of Dauntless.” 

I nodded silently, not acknowledging his ridiculous theory as I knew for a fact that Ina planned to distribute these serums. Then we fell into silence again, staring in different directions while our lips remained glued together. Not to each other’s, I mean, just. Glued shut, okay? Fuck. I didn’t understand why this was so awkward, to be honest – we spent about eight hours together on a daily basis during this ridiculous investigation, why were we acting so odd now? 

“Do you ever think that maybe you chose the wrong faction?” asked Coulter suddenly, and the question caught me off guard so badly that the glass slipped from my fingers, crashing to the ground and shattering into a thousand tiny pieces. 

“Sorry,” I muttered and immediately went to cleaning up the mess, all but leaping into the kitchen to retrieve a broom and sweeping everything up. When I had finished getting rid of all the shards and gotten myself a new glass, I sat back down next to Coulter. Finally, I mustered up the courage to turn around and look at him. 

“Of course,” I said, “I miss Candor a lot. But I’m also glad I chose Dauntless, and I’m glad that nowadays, it’s okay to be more than one thing.” 

Coulter nodded. “Yeah. I displayed equal aptitude for Dauntless and Erudite and to be honest, I’m glad I chose Dauntless. Probably would’ve gone crazy in the sea of Noses.” 

This even drew a small laugh out of me. “Yeah. Candor would’ve been my downfall. All the truth-telling and stuff…not having any secrets is kind of terrifying to me, honestly.” 

“What were your results?” 

I bit the inside of my cheek. “Mostly Dauntless and Candor. Also a lot of Erudite and a little bit of Abnegation. No Amity, though – I’m not surprised. I think that must be the worst faction in the whole world to be a part of.” 

“I don’t know about that,” he replied thoughtfully. His glass was full again and there was an air of comfort around him that hadn’t been there before. “They’re happy. Are you happy?” 

“Sure,” I said almost automatically, “Of course I’m happy.” 

“That’s why you’re spending a Saturday night alone with a bottle of whiskey and a guy you hate.” It wasn’t a question, not even an accusation. Merely a statement – a painful one at that. “But I guess it had to happen at some point, didn’t it? I mean, you couldn’t expect Four and Pedrad to be waiting around for you forever. At some point, they had to get their own girlfriends and give up on ever having a shot with you.”   
I rolled my eyes, just because his statement was so completely ludicrous that I couldn’t stop myself. “Yeah, right.” Another sip of whiskey. “I wouldn’t touch either of these guys with a ten-foot pole. They’re like brothers to me, and I’m like a sister to them. They’d never hope for something they can’t have.” 

“The heart wants what it wants,” he said. 

“Don’t get pseudo-philosophical on me. You know, men and women _can_ be friends without wanting to tear each other’s clothes off. I know, a shocker, right?” Now I was getting a little annoyed, and, what was that, was it hot in here? I suddenly felt like there was little air to breathe. 

“That’s a myth,” he said, “It can’t happen.”

“Of course it can! Just because no woman would ever want to even go _near_ you except if she wants to sleep with you, that doesn’t mean that everyone else is like that, too! Four and Zeke and I are friends. Get it through your skull, Coulter.” 

“Who’s to say I haven’t tried to be friends with women? Maybe they just get so caught up and in love that they can’t stay friends with me?” 

“You’re insufferable,” I barked, slamming down the glass with a lot more force than necessary. 

“I’m right,” he said, still annoyingly calm and smug. 

“No, you’re wrong. I’m a woman, and I certainly won’t fall in love with you. I don’t even want to sleep with you.” 

“That’s why you’re completely red and flustered? Because you _don’t_ want me?” 

Damn it. What the hell was going on here? One moment, I was arguing with this insufferable bastard and the next moment, I noticed how my cheeks were glowing. It was anger that was making me go red. Anger, not infatuation. And certainly not desire. Certainly just aggravation. 

“Fuck off, Coulter,” I said therefore. Because I was angry. 

He, however, merely laughed. It was almost a leer, but not quite. He was making sure of that. “You don’t mean that, you’re terrified,” he said. 

My intoxicated mind took a few moments to ponder on what exactly I was terrified _of_ , then it struck me that there were people out to get me and kill me and I was here, getting drunk with Eric Coulter of all the people in the world and thinking about how I honestly kind of found him hot but wouldn’t want to admit it for the world. I didn’t quite know what had gone wrong in my life to lead me to this point of utterly pathetic idiocy. Here I was, sitting on my stupid old leather sofa that had a dent on the right cushion where I always lounged when reading my favourite detective novels – a cushion that Coulter was now sitting on. And honestly, what did I have to lose? I was likely going to be dead the following week either way. 

“I think that love is overrated,” said Coulter suddenly. 

I raised my eyebrows. “What are you talking about?”

He’d sounded so private for a moment when he’d said these words. Maybe, I thought in a bizarre stroke of insanity, the two of us were not so different after all if he though the same way that I did about these sorts of things. 

“I don’t know, I just think it’s kind of pathetic how people act when they’re supposedly in love. Take your buddy Four for example.” 

I opened my mouth to protest to his speaking badly about my friend but shut it only a moment after. Perhaps he had something interesting to say. It wasn’t like I had an alternative here, really. It was either staying here and entertaining Coulter or going outside and risking my life. Neither of the perspectives was particularly attractive. 

“He was your friend for what, four years? The two of you were inseparable the first couple years, God, it was unbearable.” He grunted, and for a moment I didn’t know why but then I suddenly realised that he’d been laughing. Not in his usual sarcastic way either, but completely genuinely. 

“Hey, we weren’t that bad.” 

“Oh, please, Harper. I couldn’t walk through the goddamn Pit without seeing you two idiots giggle together. It was fucking ridiculous, if you ask me.” 

I rolled my eyes but didn’t say anything, staring expectantly at Coulter to continue and make his point. He took his sweet time taking a large sip of whiskey. 

“But still, you were friends. And then Tris Prior comes along and suddenly, the two of you spend less and less time together. Of course, it’s equally your fault for not bothering to actually get to know him and his girlfriend because you’re so focused on yourself all the time - ”

“Hey!” 

“Shut up, Harper. Still, it sucks. And all of that for what? For a girl. Great.” He took another considerably larger sip and set the glass down with much more force than necessary. “It just sucks when people are in love, that’s all I’m saying.” 

I didn’t reply for a while, instead opting to stare, for a long time, at the bookshelf directly above my bed. It was overflowing with tattered volumes, some of which had to be over a hundred years old. Detective novel was piled on top of detective novel; each and every single one of them well-loved and read by me, multiple times. 

“You have a point,” I replied finally. At this point, I was pretty drunk, but I did pride myself in remaining relatively coherent even when I was smashed. “Still, I get it. I mean, it’s not for me, I don’t think I’ll ever be one of those sappy idiots that runs around holding hands with some jerk. I’m not a wimp.”   
Coulter laughs, knocking back the rest of his whiskey and immediately reaching for the bottle to refill his glass. “That’s probably the most un-feminine thing I’ve ever heard you say.” 

“Being feminine,” I snapped, surprising myself with how harsh the words were, “does not equal being a wimp. Get it through your thick, sexist head, just because I’m a woman that doesn’t mean I have to be emotional. Which doesn’t mean that being emotional is bad. You’d think that the collapse of society would have put in perspective our ridiculous views on gender differences.” I was ranting, I knew it. I tended to do that when I was drunk. “And anyway, what about me is particularly feminine? You don’t miss a chance to make fun of my man-body.” 

He laughed again, yet not as good-naturedly as before. Sarcasm crept back into his mannerisms and I found myself missing the relaxed, bordering-on-kind Eric Coulter from moments ago. Instead, he seemed pensive and, if I wasn’t mistaken, a little annoyed. “I don’t think women are weak. And I only make fun of you because I know you can take it.” 

I almost couldn’t believe my ears. Had Coulter just said something remotely nice to me? There had to be someone filming this whole thing who’d jump out from behind a wall within moments, laughing at me with reckless abandon. “You know what, just – ,” I said, at the same time that Coulter said, “I think it’d be weird if you looked any different.” 

I sat, in shock and awe, for a few moments. Had he just said…another nice thing to me? Within the span of a minute? That was absolutely insane. I was about to tell him so, when my body suddenly grew a mind of its own, leaned over to him and kissed him straight on the mouth. At first, he was completely taken aback, but then his response clicked into place out of nowhere, now catching me completely off guard in turn. He grabbed me and pushed me down on the sofa, aligning his body on top of mine and there we were, making out heatedly in the face of my (probable) untimely demise. 

“This is ridiculous,” I said into the kiss, and Coulter laughed. His tongue tasted like liquor and at that moment, whiskey was sweeter than sugar. I leaned into him, revelling in the feeling of his hands on my skin, his lips against mine and his broad body pushed up against mine. Soon, we both laughed, and there we were, enjoying each other’s company, drunk off whiskey and off each other. 

We ended up in bed soon after, and the last thing I remember was Coulter looking down at me, and inextricable tangle of emotions in his eyes. And, for some reason, a kitchy, moonlit portrait of Coulter lying on his back, coming down from his high and staring at me intently, his grey eyes boring into mine. I could see the definition of his upper body, the strength of his arms and the juxtaposed softness of his lips as they drew up into a soft smile. 

“Go to sleep, Harper,” he said, and I complied.


	14. The Aftermath Is Secondary

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> What's this? I'm updating twice within a month? Crazy things are happening! 
> 
> I hope that you're all still enjoying the story of Rae and Eric, thank you so much for reading! Also, you might hate me for this chapter - but lo and behold, I have the next one written out so it'll be online soon. This story will probably finish at round the twentieth chapter, btw, so the end is nigh. 
> 
> Have a wonderful day!  
> Love,   
> M
> 
> Title is taken from "Look Alive, Sunshine" by MCR

I woke up neither because the sun was tickling my toes, nor because the smell of fresh coffee had roused me. Nor did I wake to a gentle lover’s touch, brushing my hair behind my ear and kissing me softly. Not even my alarm clock wanted to help me preserve one tiny sliver of my dignity. 

Nope – I awoke to the feeling of a huge hand shaking my shoulder, quite roughly, may I add. 

“Nap time’s up, sleeping beauty, time to get to work.” 

_No._ It couldn’t be. 

Blinking blearily, I wrenched open my tired eyes, and yep. Yep, it could be, apparently. 

Eric Coulter was standing at the foot of my bed, fully dressed and wearing a scowl of epic proportions. This was _mortifying_. I don’t think I’d ever gotten dressed faster ever before in my entire life (and I’ve had a fair share of mildly embarrassing one-night stands, let me tell you). I was in my black work clothes within seconds, and after quickly running a brush through my hair and another one over my teeth, I all but jumped out of the door, Coulter at my heels. 

I’d gotten entirely piss-drunk off a quarter of a bottle of whiskey (figures, I’d had a couple of painkillers in the infirmary) and decided, in my drunken stupor, that the best course of action was to have sex with Eric Coulter. This was just great. I half-expected Coulter to start laughing like a crazy person any minute, telling me how he’d pranked me and how this had been his plan all along. To get me drunk and to find out that I was really kind of mediocre in bed (and sloppy, seeing as I had been off my face). 

I must’ve been an ugly mixture of bright green and red when the two of us walked into the cafeteria together.

“You know, I’ll leave you to it. See you in the Control Room,” said Coulter, finally shoving off. There was an odd expression on his face, but I honestly couldn’t bring myself to care – the bright orange burning in my stomach was distracting me. Great, so I was embarrassed, hung over, embarrassed, ashamed, an idiot and hung over. 

This was going to be the best day of my life. 

“Are my eyes playing tricks on me or did I just see you walk in together with Eric Coulter?” asked Zeke when I sat down. Straight to business, how nice. “Because if he tried beating you up before breakfast, I’ll gladly knock him out.” 

“Dude, we live near each other,” I replied as coolly as I could, trying to keep my voice even, “He saw me coming out of my apartment and waited up, we had the case to discuss. No violence included.” 

“You had an actual, civil conversation?” asked Zeke, “I don’t believe it.” 

“Neither do I,” Four said evenly, and judging from the glint in his eyes, he was neither lying nor deluding himself – he knew exactly what had happened. He could read me like a book; there was no hiding anything from him. 

I squirmed in my seat under his piercing gaze, knowing exactly that I had another thing coming the second that I’d leave the protection of Zeke’s presence. I gulped, forgetting for a moment that I had bigger things to worry about than this ridiculous drama between me and Four and Coulter and Zeke and everyone. Hell, I had uncovered what seemed to be a huge plot here in Dauntless and I was probably about to get myself in a metric shitton of trouble for it – I was terrified of the moment that I’d be left alone, vulnerable to these people that probably wanted to silence me before I could tell anyone about their doings; even though at this point, it was much too late. I already had. 

“I’ve got a shift now, see you guys!” said Zeke far too soon and all but ran out of the room. I sat opposite of Four, wavering under his persistent stare. 

“We should probably talk about this, Rae,” he said. He sounded insistent. There was even a tiny note of anger in his voice and I couldn’t help but flinch a little. I only had two choices here: I could run away from this awful conversation and risk being killed by the people I’d been trying to bust, or I could sit here and let Four lecture me like an idiotic child. I was ready to take my chance with the possibly murderous gang of criminals lurking in corners and sharpening their knives for me when Four spoke. 

“I don’t think you’re doing the right thing.” 

I coughed, trying to cover up the discomfort I felt and possibly also to buy myself more time before having to cook up some bullshit reply.

“No, really, this isn’t you, Rae. Coulter is an asshole, he’s been treating you badly for weeks and I don’t think you should be…having anything to do with him.” His eyes were stern, like he was lecturing a disobedient child. Possibly even a dog peeing on his carpet. “You might want to go for someone a little less insane.” 

I rolled my eyes. “Gee, Fifteen. You get laid and suddenly you’re an expert in all things relationships.” 

He seemed taken aback. “I didn’t say I thought I was an expert. And don’t you _dare_ speak about Tris and me in that way, we’re actually dating instead of just…doing each other like animals. Not that you’d understand that, would you?” 

“What is that supposed to mean?” Four looked like he wanted to say something else but thought better of it and pushed the words down, sighing and leaning over the table.

“Nothing, Rae. Absolutely nothing.” 

The two of us attempted idle conversation for a few more minutes, but our pathetic tries were rendered moot when we realised that we were actually quite annoyed at each other. We eventually parted ways, me all but shaking and reeling from the perspective of possibly getting shanked (that might be another word I picked up in a book). 

Honestly, who on earth did Four think he was? There was an acidic feeling on my tongue and a hot pit unfurling in my stomach, suggesting that I was more annoyed than originally assumed. Talking to Four, it had been easy to tamp down the angry words wanting to escape my mouth, but now that I couldn’t see his gullible face anymore, I was, quite frankly, absolutely furious. I mean, what kind of friend says stuff like that? ‘ _I don’t think you’re doing the right thing_ ,’, my ass. He was the one dropping his best friend as quick as anyone can utter ‘betrayal’ just because he was desperate to get laid. I had every right to be angry.

In all my anger, I didn’t even notice that I’d reached the Control Room. I had to be more careful, for God’s sake. For all I knew, some of Ina’s henchmen were lurking around every single corner. 

“You’re late, Harper. Lover’s squabble?” came the sarcastic greeting from Coulter. He was sitting in the corner of the room, smiling at me with that awful, smug look of his. In front of him, a vial of the red serum was lying on a low desk. Beside it was what looked like a piece of paper with words hastily scribbled on it. 

“Shut up, Coulter,” I said. I chose not to acknowledge his gaze roaming over my body, like he had some sort of right to do that now. “What’s that?” I needed distractions right now, and there was nothing like the distraction of working. 

His smirk immediately vanished, making way for a more serious expression. “We know what the serum is now. Emily from the serum lab in Erudite tells me that it was pretty difficult to figure this stuff out – apparently, it’s got nothing to do with any of the serums we employ.” 

I nodded, beckoning for him to continue. 

“It doesn’t have any similar effects. She says that the only thing this stuff really does is…get you high.” 

“Get you what now?” 

“You’re the expert on crime before we split into factions, you tell me.” There it was again, the mean smirk on his face. This time, however, I rose to the bait – who the hell did _this guy_ think he was? Why were all the men in my life trying to make me lose my mind right now?

“You know what, Coulter, fuck off. I don’t need this shit,” I said, gritting my teeth. 

I expected him to be put off by my sudden forcefulness, but he merely smirked on. “Didn’t seem like it last night, when you all but begged me to touch you.” An evilly delighted spark jumped through from his left eye to the right as I felt myself getting increasingly flustered. “I can still hear you, moaning and groaning – I thought the neighbours would be knocking on the walls any minute, to be honest.” What? _What had this asshole just said to me_? 

I couldn’t believe it, that was it. 

My fist swung out on its own accord, hitting Coulter’s nose head-on with a sickening crunch. But I wasn’t done. He couldn’t react fast enough to stop the leg that swung out to kick him in the hip. He was still impeded by his sitting position, but that was quickly changed when he jumped up and came toward me with blinding speed and anger replacing the mischievous glint in his eyes. 

It was an easy feat to throw me off-balance in a place as confined as the Control Room. Coulter knocked me to the ground within seconds and got onto me, confining me with his huge thighs. He raised a gigantic paw to punch, but my blind fury filled me with strength and I blocked the hit, bucking my hips to make him get off of me. But he had me pinned. 

Thus, I decided to fight dirty and punched straight at his groin, watching him falter slightly as pain shot through him. His momentary astonishment left me with enough time to wiggle out from under him and get back to my feet. God, I needed to get back into working out, this was more tiring than it should have been. I aimed a swift kick to his head, but he blocked again, trying to bring me off balance. In a last, desperate attempt to knock him out, I threw my fist at his jaw, connecting again and throwing him to the side. Another hit went to the side of his head and he raised his arm to retaliate. 

I closed my eyes, preparing myself for the inevitable blow, knowing that I was not strong enough to stop him when he was that wound up – but the hit never came. 

When I wrenched my lids open again, I did it just in time to see Four’s strong arm wedge its way between the two of us, pushing me back and taking a painful hit from Coulter in the process. He seemed unfazed, though. I had no idea where he had come from. Still, I was infinitely grateful that he’d turned up, or else Coulter and I probably would’ve bashed each other’s skulls in. It was a miracle we hadn’t done so before as the Control Room was totally tiny and the two of us had somehow avoided bumping into any equipment. 

“What the _hell_ is going on here?” demanded Four. It took a lot to get him to swear – and that was how I knew that the two of us were in deep shit. Yet I was still too worked up to actually give a flying donkey shit. I don’t think I’d ever been so furious before. I didn’t even really know why; probably because of Coulter’s stupid fucking smug face and the way he knew just what buttons to push. To think that I’d slept with him not even twelve hours ago – it was absolutely unbearable! Humiliating, even. Every cell of my body was yearning to hurt Coulter, to punch and kick him and to show him just how small of an impact he had on me and how little I cared about his dumb fucking opinion of me. Telling me he thought I looked good, sleeping with me and then this. 

And Four, too; what the hell was he doing here? Trying to make himself out to be the ultimate saviour again, what fun. Now he knew that he was right, great. 

“No!” I screamed at Coulter, kicking out, “I’m not fucking done with you, you sexist piece of dog shit! Come here and I’ll tear your fucking head off!” 

“Rae!” barked Four, pushing me back. He wasn’t using the full strength of his arm, but the hit knocked the breath from my lungs and made me topple back at least half a metre. 

“What the fuck is wrong with you, you stupid asshole?” I kept screaming. A vein bulged out at the side of Coulter’s neck, but instead of truly angry, he simply looked bored and maybe even a little ashamed. He was pissed that I was making a scene, pissed that Four was seeing him like this. 

“Yeah, don’t have your shitty friends to cover your ass right now, do you? They do your dirty work for you all the time,” I sneered. “What a shame that when you decided to do something yourself for once, it wasn’t nearly as impressive as you’d like people to think.” Hook, line, and sinker. I saw Coulter’s mouth tighten into a fine line. A vein rose from his neck. 

“That’s enough, Rae.” Four’s voice bounced off the walls. In a single beat, my mouth snapped shut. The words simply stopped streaming out of my mouth. I admit that what I’d said had been a low blow, but I was seeing red. I was still only seeing red. I wanted to hurt Coulter, even if I was just blindly lashing out by now. He deserved it. He deserved all that had been coming to him. Fuck, I was so _angry_. 

“Thanks, Four, I think I’ve got it from here,” said Coulter, righting himself and brushing an imaginary piece of lint off his shoulder. “I’ll sort this out with Max.” 

Four’s head whipped around faster than I thought was possible, his steely gaze fixing Coulter to the wall. I’d never seen the man look that intimidated. I made a mental note to store that image for later taunting. 

“You, Coulter, shut up right now. When I came in here, you were brawling like children. I don’t think that your status will get you out of this one.” 

Half-expecting Coulter to come up with a snarky reply, I wormed around Four’s form to get a good look at his face, but surprisingly, he all but surrendered, agreeing to go to Max’s office together.


End file.
